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Request for Comment: Irrelevant Picture in a Featured Country Article

Questions by Nikkul (talk · contribs):

I'd like all of us, especially those favoring the Toda image, to answer these questions.

  • Are the Toda's the only Indians whose culture has been studied by foreigners?
  • Is their contribution to Indian culture soooooooooo strong that when one mentions Indian culture, their name pops up?
  • There are tribes of witches see here that survive throughout India in small numbers. Over the years they have formed a culture and traditions. Their population is tiny. If one follows Fowler's logic, are we justified in putting an image of witches dancing around a fire as representative of India's culture?
  • If small groups like the Todas can have their image on Wiki, then why cant the Chenchus, Konda Reddis, Kolams, Naikpods, Nishis, Apa Tanis,Khovas, Sherdukpens, Monpas, and all other tribes listed here? Who decides that the Toda's are going to have their image on Wiki and not the other tribes?
  • Instead of putting an image that applies to small small small minorities, wouldnt it make more sense to put an image of something that represents all of India (like Hinduism)?
  • Some editors are trying to represent all parts of India in the images displayed. Are the Todas spread out throughout India? Are the Todas representative of even South India?
  • If they dont deserve to be mentioned in the section, then do they deserve to have an image there?
  • Should the Toda image be present in a summary of a section when they represent .0001% of what that section is discussing?
  • Aren't there images that would better represent Indian culture than the Toda hut? Is there a paucity of images relating to Diwali, Cricket, literature, cuisine, dress (all of which are mentioned in the section)?

Reply to Nikkul questions

The logic in most of your questions in flawed Nikkul. I will demonstrate the fallacies by posting similar questions for the other images:

  • Is Gandhi the only major historical figure that has been studied by foreigners? Is the Indian peacock the only bird studied by foreigners?
  • If the Agni missile system isn't mentioned in its own section, does it deserve to have an image there? If the Secretariat Building doesn't deserve to be mentioned in its own section, does it deserve to have an image there? If the Bombay Stock Exchange isn't mentioned in its own section, does it deserve to have an image there?
  • Why should we have an image of the peacock when it is only one of the ~1260 species of birds in India (let alone the number of animals in total)

Do the Taj Mahal and Tagore represent ALL of Indian culture? Does the Taj Mahal represent Hindu temple architecture, Indian cuisine and dress? Does Tagore represent Hindi and South India literature?

  • Nehru isn't mentioned in the history section? Why do we have an image of him?

Now to reply to some of your questions, if we put an image of Diwali or cricket, that in now way would mean it "represents" Indian culture. One image can never represent one aspect of India. An image can only be an example of that aspect of India. As of now, the Toda hut is an example of tribal Indian culture (and they comprise 8.1% of the total population) and an example of rural India (70%). It is not the only example of tribal and rural India, but if it is replaced it should be replaced with something that does exemplify at least rural India. There is a fairly strong urban bias at the moment. The only images that can essntially represent "all" of India are the maps. :) GizzaDiscuss © 00:18, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Gizza, you have to realize that approximations are not transitive. The number 10 is almost 15, which is almost 20, which is almost 25, et cetera, but that cannot let you make a statement that 10 is almost 1,000,000. The Todas represent 0.0001%, you claim that this representation is approximately enough to represent the 8.1% tribal population, and you claim that the 8.1% tribal population is approximately enough to represent the 70% rural population, and you're implicitly claiming that this is enough to approximately represent all of India. At each step you're okay, (although I still find how 0.0001% can represent even the 8.1% tribal population very suspect), but your conclusion uses broken logic when you try to tie the steps up through transitivity. 10 is not approximately 1,000,000 even if each number N is approximately N+1. That said, I don't think anyone here is claiming we should find a image that perfectly represents India. The debate is over preferring pictures that are more representative of India by orders of magnitude than the Toda pic. It's not a bimodal "doesn't represent India" vs "does represent India", it's about degree and see WP:WEIGHT for more info. -- Thoreaulylazy 16:45, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
No DaGizza is not saying that the Toda dairy represents rural India because tribal India is an "approximation" of rural India, but rather that it represents rural India because tribal India is a part of rural India (or at least non-urban India). The relation which DaGizza is talking about is not approximation, but rather inclusion, which has the transitive property. I don't know why you keep making these ridiculous percentage arguments. Who does Tagore represent? How many Indians are upper-caste Bhadralok Bengalis who have won the Nobel Prize and written a national anthem or two? Zero at the present moment. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:10, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Please put Taj Mahal's Photo

please put Taj Mahal's Photo in Culture section........it is more good and a nice article can be written on it !(unsigned)

What are you trying to say??? KnowledgeHegemony 17:04, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Some queries

  • Many of those who support the removal of the Toda image often point to the numbers, arguing that they only represent 0.0001% of the population or something like that. Firstly, would you support the coverage of Uttar Pradesh on this article be 200 times greater than Sikkim under a similar line of argument? I know many will refute this statement by saying the numbers are far more extreme for the Todas which brings me to my second point.
  • The India itself states (cited) that 8.1% of the Indian population are tribal. That is more than the number of Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists and every other religion combined apart from Islam and Hinduism in the article. If we were to say use the Toda image as an example of tribal India (not just the Todas) then we could add in the caption "one of the thousands of tribes in India" or something. There wouldn't be one image that represented tribal India. Hell no. We can only exemplify it, and why not do it with the most beautiful Indian tribal image available? Of course, some of you may even say 8.1% is quite small for an SS article.
  • There isn't one image on this page that shows rural India, and nearly 70% of Indians live in rural areas. We have a Bombay Stock Exchange tower and an Agni Missile parade, both of which show urban India. If not exemplifying tribal India, the Toda image also is an example of rural India. Again, there is no one image that can represent every rural Indian. This is probably the only FP that does show that very crucial part of India.
  • If the Toda image is removed, I would like another rural image to replace it, not Tagore. Tagore represents the historical side of India, which is already covered by Gandhi. I firmly believe the rural side needs to be adressed since they represent more than half of India. GizzaDiscuss © 10:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
With all due respect, Tagore represents literature, dance, and to a lesser extent, art and music, in addition to being the most notable and visible representative of Indian Culture. I've suggested compromises that have more images and are inclusive, rather than 'either, or', 'black, white', 'good, bad'. If there are only two images, Tagore represents the widest spectrum of Culture, and notability. ॐ Priyanath talk 15:11, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
You have a point, but I think the problem is coming down more to mistaking ethno and demographics for culture. The Agni missile is in the foreign relations and military section, Toda hut is similarly apt in a section that says that India has a number of tribal societies which forms a large part of its minority population.( ie, demographics) Culture of rural India is probabaly a different kettle, but again, with regards to what I've said above re music, performed arts, festivals etc, you will find are applicable to rural India too. Tagore influenced literature, but I would've had him in a different section. Half the problems in this article arises of the lack of consensus to expand, while the section themselves remain incredibily small and hardly enough info.Rueben lys 10:54, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Tagore represents history more than culture? you need to do more reading. Tagore apart from himself being the literary giant that he was, toiled a great deal to revive and rejuvenate many art forms. It was at Shantiniketan that Manipuri and Kathakali and Bharatanatyam came together. Manipuri, especially owes a great deal to him. But for Manipuri dance, I guess the only reason we'd ever hear of them would be when some assembly building gets burnt down or something or when a militant group functioning as a parallel government issues visitor passes to you and me. If it is the pristine beauty of the Manipuri dance that comes to mind when we think of Manipur, the credit must go Tagore. And as long as we cant decide to rotate photos worthy of the culture(and other) sections (something I'd suggested long back), Tagore remains the least controversial and least likely to cause revert wars. Sarvagnya 10:55, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Entirely agree with you DaGizza. In fact I would go further. Here is an extract from something I wrote somewhere upstairs, "We should expand the culture section by 30%, but about four-fifths of the expansion (i.e. 25% of the culture section) should be devoted to the culture of the Scheduled castes and scheduled tribes of India. Since according to the 2001 SC-ST Demographics Table the SC+ST add up to 16.2+8.2 = approximately 25% of the population, and since their culture is largely outside the mainstream culture of India, it is reasonable that we do this. That means that the current text (which is all about the mainstream culture will be expanded at most by five percent." Some thing along those lines, but in the culture section, not in demographics. That also means the most expansion will be in the realm of tribal/rural culture." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:16, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree that there should be some part of the culture section devoted to the culture of Scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, but doing some sort of percentage quota system is not part of any Wikipedia policy that I know of. If it were, we should dedicate 80.5% of the article to Hindu culture. There actually does need to be some discussion of the influence of all religions in India on Culture, not just in passing as it's done now. And it should be more than in increase of 5% because of the relevance of religion on Indian Culture. I've had the sense this issue is being avoided due to past disputes along these lines, but it does need to be addressed in this article, IMO. ॐ Priyanath talk 15:25, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Entirely disagree with you fowler? What is the culture of scheduled tribes and castes of India, huts? You've just accepted what you're trying to enforce (is the only word I can find) is not the culture of mainstream India, and what are you saying, you'e going to right a historical wrong, is it? Please look up what wikipedia is not. I have given above an outline of culture of India as given by the Indian high commissions in two countries, which is ideal for use as a template. Could you at all find me a brief summary of Indian culture then?Rueben lys 12:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
>>> Rueben lys stated" What is the culture of scheduled tribes and castes of India, huts?
I asked you if you consider Folk culture and Tribal culture to be a part of Culture and you referred me to your statement, "I think the problem is coming down more to mistaking ethno and demographics for culture." By "ethno" did you mean "ethnography?" If not, please explain what you meant. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:11, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

No fowler, I meant ehtnicity in a broader demographic context, misinterpreting social culture as a representative of Regional culture. Please dont start playing with words because it will get tedious and deviate from the main issue here, which was and is if the Toda hut is an appropriate representative of Indian culture, and wether images of some festival or performing arts or similar will not be more appropriate. Incidentally, have a look at Kolkata#culture (although I would also put an image of a Bandh there). Rueben lys 14:28, 7 October 2007 (UTC) Also, if the section's expanded have look at the United States article, I thought it was very well structured and made sense. Rueben lys 14:28, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

By "ethno" (a word not to be found in any dictionary), you meant "ethnicity in a broader demographic context misinterpreting social culture as a representative of Regional culture?" What exactly is "ethnicity in a broader demographic context?" As for your link social culture, which really is subculture, India is not a highly urbanized society like the US, where there are subcultures like "Crawford County Back-to-the-Landers" (urbanites in a certain area who gave up their city lives and started farming in middle age) etc. etc. India is a largely rural society (65-70%), a large percentage of which (30% of rural males, and 54% of rural females) is still illiterate. If you are going to give examples, why bother with the US, which is not an FA, why not go straight to the country FAs. Eleven of the fourteen include images of Folk culture, rural culture, and even subculture in their culture section. Please check them out in my RfC statement (collapsible box). Meanwhile I will await your explanation of "ethnicity in a broader demographic context" I should warn you that which each outburst like, "What is the culture of scheduled tribes and castes of India, huts?" you are digging your semantic hole ever so much deeper. Fowler&fowler

«Talk» 15:38, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

  • My what outburst fowler!!! ethno I truncated from ethnic and am soooooooo mortified that it noffended your sensibillities. I bothered with the US, beucase it is a good article and it was well written, I have also mentioned calcutta which is an FA, if you're get you blind goggles out of the way. The Toda may have had a lot of references is the same (in fact worse) grounds as the Indian National Army having had a lot of references. Oh, and I am quivering in my shoes for you warning because I am so scared your going to scold me. If you're stupid enough not to see that I am trying to say that the Toda people, with their 1000 people tucked away in the Niligiris do not form Indian culture, then you really should go to special needs school. As for your rural and tribal culture, which form of rural and Indian culture have you so far found to be so distinct from Urban Indian culture that only the toda image can represent it? that they live in mud huts, is it? Well, here's what, they sing and listen to the same music, speak the same language, have similar performing arts, have similar social practices, eat similar food, have similar social customs and sensibilities, see the same movies, cheer for the same cricket team. I am not going to go into your idiotic rant about doing an amazon search in south america to tell me that only the Toda culture is representative of India. If in doubt I have given you a template from the Government of India sources, find me a reference that says the Toda are the culture of India or stop making idiotic arguments. Enough is enough!!!Rueben lys 16:41, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
I am offering you eleven of the fourteen country featured articles. They all have images of Folk, Rural or Tribal culture in their culture sections. What do you offer in turn? The US, which, again, is not an FA. And Calcutta, which is not a country. It is a large city to be sure, but its urban or suburban environs would not be the best place to go looking for Rural, Folk, or Tribal culture. You can call me idiotic all you want (I've been called a lot worse), but the fact remains, Wikipedia works by producing reliable secondary sources, and you haven't produced any. A Government of India template is not a reliable secondary source for culture, unless one is trying to decide what date the annual Id holiday will fall on this year. As for your remarks about my "idiotic rant about doing an amazon search in south america," all I can say is this: I would love to go to the Amazon river and while away the hours watching the piranhas murky-up its lazy waters; however, I was actually only talking about doing a search for the keyword "Culture" on the on-line bookseller amazon.com Furthermore, I was pointing out that the second book that appears in that search is anthropologist Clifford Geertz's Interpretations of Cultures," which I would highly recommend. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:50, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Here we go with your disengenuity again!!! Fowler, no one is suggesting that Folk, rural tribal whatever other al-culture you might find appropriate should not be included, the US template I said(look above) was well written, and I found well structured. If you think breaking up into some other type is more appropriate do that. And a Govt. of India source is not reliable for the countries culture??? What land do you come from??? Sounds irritatingly patronising to say the least. And your anthropologist Clifford Geertz says Toda culture is an appropriate representation of Indian culture, does he? And I am loving how you're now hooked to secondary sources, tell you what, why dont you show me a secondary source that tells me what "Indian culture" is? And while you look for it, here's another site from your not so trustworthy Government of India, and here's one sourced from your beloved UCLA, the latter surprisingly similar to the untrustoworthy Govt of India webiste (copied no doubt!) but forms a good guide form what might be Indian culture, wont you say???Rueben lys 20:23, 7 October 2007 (UTC) Oh, and since when did Amzaon the best databse for good books? I thought it was a commercial bookretailing website with substantial competing interests. I would've personally preferred something you found on academic databases, or at least reviewed in it.Rueben lys 20:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Rueben lys, Reliable Sources, and my forthcoming IIM

I am reproducing below an exchange from a section upstairs.

>>>The question, as I see it, is the quality and reliability of the product I produce on Wikipedia. Period. For example, when I am finished with my Short History of the Indian Independence Movement, I will be happy to write to any five historians (of your choice) from the list of references and ask them if they think the article is balanced and also if they have other constructive suggestions. How does that sound? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:50, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
>>>Silly, because I am neither going to go and check wether you really can or have written to them, nor going to verify what they said becuase, as I said I have enough confidence in my own knowledge and understanding as well as on my own associations and sources who I dont bandy about writing to, who have already told me what they think about the Indian movement. And lastly, I really dont care if its not published or verifiable. But yes, if they do suggest any constructive thoughts to them, by all means, incorporate that into your account.Rueben lys 11:02, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Since I am anticipating that user:Rueben lys is going to throw up all sorts of hurdles when my Indian Independence movement article is ready (its about 3/5 complete now), I would like readers to take another look at the list of references. There are 36 books, and I haven't added any papers yet. I am certainly not aware of a more thorough list in any Indian History article. Since user:Rueben lys doesn't want to take up my offer, I am willing to offer that editors on the Talk:India page select five authors from the reference list (and I'm happy to make it ten authors if you'd like.) and we can then have some reliable administrator (for example, from the Arbitration Committee) send these historians an email and ask if they think the article is balanced, and if not, how it should be altered. How does that sound to the readers of this page. I am mainly trying to pre-empt the kind of pointless enervating arguments we have had in the past. More importantly, user:Rueben lys's words, "I have enough confidence in my own knowledge and understanding as well as on my own associations and sources who I dont bandy about writing to, who have already told me what they think about the Indian movement. And lastly, I really dont care if its not published or verifiable," are incredible to me. They fly in the face of everything Wikipedia stands for. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

First of all, Fowler, you've just created something out of nothing, so congratulations. I have left comments on the talk page of the project you're creating, and I am disappointed you see my comments as hurdles rather than constructive criticisms. I had no intention of throwing up hurdles and am quite offended that you hold such scant regards for a fellow editor's contributions.
My point about verfiabillity goes to Verfiabillity, which is a key wikipedia policy and does not fly in the face of anything that wikipedia stands for. Lastly, you ignored the last sentence where I said if they offer you constructive criticism, by all means incorporate that. Remember, not everyone is going to email a professor to ask if what is said is right or appropriate (and hence the wiki policy). Even administrators are wiki editors and do not have a high ground over other editors (see WP:ADMIN). My point is what you say should be thoroughly verifiable. You're welcome to email as many authors as you like, wether that email exchange concludes as a verfiable reference is a different issue. I have said before I appreciate the work you're doing in the IIM, does not neccessarily mean it is perfect or cant be improved. And yes, you have included a lot of books, but no papers, and you did criticise some of the opinions I sourced from peer reviewed journals in the last debate. If I may say so Fowler, you need to take a step back and see wether aggravating a perfectly calm situation to try and prove your PoV. Your work will always be open to scrutiny, and you have to be able to defend them and improve on them. I am really tired of your incessant bickering and chldish approach to every issue where I have corresponded with you.Rueben lys 12:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
The papers I am planning to include are review papers (or rather papers on the topic of the entire independence movement). I remain firm that papers (or books) on a specialized sub-topic do not belong to a general history, as they will inevitably highlight the subject of their study. For example, the role of Scotsman George Yule (fourth president of the INC) in the Indian independence movement, will loom larger in a biography than in a book on the overall independence movement. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:44, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Replace 'independence movement' with 'Culture', and 'Scotsman George Yule' with 'Toda Huts', and you have exactly what we are saying above. ॐ Priyanath talk 15:13, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
(To Rueben lys):By "ethno" (a word not to be found in any dictionary), you meant "ethnicity in a broader demographic context misinterpreting social culture as a representative of Regional culture?" What exactly is "ethnicity in a broader demographic context?" As for your link social culture, which really is subculture, India is not a highly urbanized society like the US, where there are subcultures like "Crawford County Back-to-the-Landers" (urbanites in a certain area who gave up their city lives and started farming in middle age) etc. etc. India is a largely rural society (65-70%), a large percentage of which (30% of rural males, and 54% of rural females) is still illiterate. If you are going to give examples, why bother with the US, which is not an FA, why not go straight to the country FAs. Eleven of the fourteen include images of Folk culture, rural culture, and even subculture in their culture section. Please check them out in my RfC statement (collapsible box). Meanwhile I will await your explanation of "ethnicity in a broader demographic context" I should warn you that which each outburst like, "What is the culture of scheduled tribes and castes of India, huts?" you are digging your semantic hole ever so much deeper. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:43, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
(To Priyanath) Not quite. As I have already indicated the Toda have a large number of references (specialized) in the two main academic catalogs (US Library of Congress, British Academic and National Libraries (COPAC); more, for example, than Chola Temples. The Toda are also mentioned in pretty much every general book on Cultural or Social Anthropology (not specialized). George Yule, unfortunately has only two references: his inaugural speech to the INC and a collection of his speeches. The problem as I see it is that you and Rueben are excluding Folk, Tribal, and Rural cultures from Culture, as evidenced by Rueben's outburst above. BTW, most definitions of "culture" have been made by anthropologists. In fact if you do an amazon.com search on "Culture," the first or the second entry will be Clifford Geertz's Interpretations of Cultures, which is one of the classics of 20th century anthropology, and which, I highly recommend, if you have some time. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:56, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
The toda are not a notable part of general Indian Culture, and therefore should not take 50% of the image space in the Culture section. Your arguments for notability still rely on extremely narrow anthropological studies. You are also wrong in claiming that I am trying to exclude Folk and tribal cultures from the Culture section. I've offered three ways of including them during the last several days, without even a single acknowledgment or response from you. Other editors have responded. Your preference for invective and ad hominem attacks instead, suggests a strongly held ideology. It unfortunately is getting in the way of any resolution here, and in the proper application of Wikipedia policies (which have been extensively quoted above). ॐ Priyanath talk 17:25, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
  • My what outburst fowler!!! ethno I truncated from ethnic and am soooooooo mortified that it noffended your sensibillities. I bothered with the US, beucase it is a good article and it was well written, I have also mentioned calcutta which is an FA, if you're get you blind goggles out of the way. The Toda may have had a lot of references is the same (in fact worse) grounds as the Indian National Army having had a lot of references. Oh, and I am quivering in my shoes for you warning because I am so scared your going to scold me. If you're stupid enough not to see that I am trying to say that the Toda people, with their 1000 people tucked away in the Niligiris do not form Indian culture, then you really should go to special needs school. As for your rural and tribal culture, which form of rural and Indian culture have you so far found to be so distinct from Urban Indian culture that only the toda image can represent it? that they live in mud huts, is it? Well, here's what, they sing and listen to the same music, speak the same language, have similar performing arts, have similar social practices, eat similar food, have similar social customs and sensibilities, see the same movies, cheer for the same cricket team. I am not going to go into your idiotic rant about doing an amazon search in south america to tell me that only the Toda culture is representative of India. If in doubt I have given you a termplate from the Government of India sources, find me a reference that says the Toda are the culture of India or stop making idiotic arguments. Enough is enough!!!Rueben lys 16:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

>>>Said by Priyanath: "I agree that there should be some part of the culture section devoted to the culture of Scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, but doing some sort of percentage quota system is not part of any Wikipedia policy that I know of. If it were, we should dedicate 80.5% of the article to Hindu culture. There actually does need to be some discussion of the influence of all religions in India on Culture, not just in passing as it's done now. And it should be more than in increase of 5% because of the relevance of religion on Indian Culture. I've had the sense this issue is being avoided due to past disputes along these lines, but it does need to be addressed in this article, IMO." ॐ Priyanath talk 15:25, 7 October 2007 (UTC) Very sorry, I didn't see this post until just now. I don't disagree with many of the things you are saying. Will reply in more detail later in a couple of hours. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:58, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't a Hindu (like Diwali) image represent rural and urban India?

Do we HAVE to separate rural and urban India? If we have an image showing Indian culture that applies to rural and urban india like the Diwali image, doesnt it make more sense to use that instead of separating rural and urban india and seperating it into groups it applies to? Why cant we use a Diwali image from rural India? Nikkul 18:56, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

It would depend on the type of Diwali image if it would suffice. Three of the images on the Diwali page, namely Image:Diwali Jaipur.jpg, Image:Office Complex.jpg and Image:Knadil.JPG all show the modernisation of Diwali and would strengthen the urban bias already present on this article. The problem with most of the other Diwali images is that though they are "neutral," in that there is ambiguity in whether the photo was taken in a village or a metro, is that there are two images that purely show urban India. I don't ask for rural images to dominate this article (even though they represent 70% of India) but at least balance the urban images. The historical images and maps are not applicable when it comes to classifying them as rural/urban and the other images all show cities of India. Since Agra has a population of 1.4 million, even the Taj Mahal can be argued as an image tilted towards the urban side.
Just to let everyone know, I am not equating rural India with poverty, which people may be thinking of in an era of globalisation. There are plenty of enriching rural images of India and one of them is the Toda hut, despite its obscurity. I am not suggesting it is the only one of course. If there are other beautiful pictures of rural India already on Wikipedia or if someone is willing to upload some, I would appreciate them to add links to the images on this talk page. Thanks GizzaDiscuss © 02:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

One week after the RfC and what high-school students in India are reading

Well, it has been a week after the RfC began. I just read through all the comments. I also wondered what high-school students in India are reading about culture. As I had expected, their books were more sophisticated than I had thought. Here is chapter 8 "Culture in India" from NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) text-book, "Structure of Indian Society." Notice the choice of words, "Culture in India," not "Culture of India." Please read through the chapter. This is not the New Series written after the change of government in India in 2005; the book was actually written in 2002 under the BJP government. Notice, how much emphasis it places on Folk and Tribal culture. I will propose something later.

Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

PS. And here is chapter 5: The challenges of cultural diversity of the new series, published in 2006. Obviously, this is more sophisticated than the 2002 version, but the point I am making is the both versions take a broader view of culture than is being taken right now in the Wikipedia India#Culture section or the page Culture of India. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:55, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

PPS As well as chapter 3: Social Institutions-Continuity and Change in the new series which talks about, caste, tribe, etc. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:07, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Fowler, the book reference you provided is a book on sociolology that itself says it focusses on the basic structure of the Indian society and on the social change development in India (per chapter 1, pg 6, it doesn't say it looks into Indian culture. It describes Demograpic (ch2), Building blocks of Indian society,castes tribes etc (Ch 3), socio-cultural dimensions of the market as an institution, chapter 5 on social inequality, chapter 6 (pg 7 says) deals with the strength and weaknesses of cultural diversity (communal and casteist issue etc), it looks at community identity (p 116), ideas of secularity, communalism etc. It is not a study of culture .

However, you're right in that chapter 6 it tries to examplify what constitutes cultural aspects of the different communities of India, but if you see again, it uses pictures of food, clothes, religious events (festivals as I interpreted), etc. I might have overlooked, but I saw no mention of distinct rural or Urban culture. I think this is actually more supportive of the view that music food, dance, clothings, customs etc are more representative of culture than the image of the Toda hut.

If you're suggesting that the cultural diversity be expanded under different subheadings, that is not the point of the mediation (I think most editors agree the section deserves to be expanded, as does the article). I haven't looked through the link you provide, but The issue of the RfC is wether the image of the Toda hut is significant and representative enough to deserve as much space as it does over those of other more prominent stuff that exemplify cultural aspects of India, and if not should it not be replaced with these oter images. You do realise the end result of all this bickering has been a waste of time when somebody could have written a replacement text. I get the feeling there is more storms in teacup going on in this page because useful contibutions are being "disallowed". Also on the issue of FA status and article space, note that the Battle of Normandy is more than 1MB long.Rueben lys 00:06, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I read through Chapter 8, and contrary to supporting a picture of a Toda dairy, it devotes considerably more text to Music, Dance, Theatre, and Mass Media. A single paragraph is devoted to 'Art and Architecture' whereas those other three topics are at least thrice as long, with Mass Media being an entire page. (See pages 103-105) I don't see how repeating art and architecture with a Toda hut, since the Taj Mahal is already an example of art and architecture, can be supported by your NCERT reference. If anything, the NCERT text supports a picture of Bollywood given the considerable weight to Mass Media. Next to that, Bharatanatyam, Banghra, or some other Indian music/dance form. I would suggest looking at your references more carefully before trying to cite them as supporting evidence. -- Thoreaulylazy 02:21, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Results of the RfC

The RfC, which started a week ago, is now closed. I would like to thank everyone for taking part and I am sure Priyanath will as well. I had framed my statement as a series of complex questions. Most people didn't answer those questions necessarily, but they got their point across whether they wanted the Toda image or not. I then conducted a straw poll to test for consensus as WP:DEMOCRACY allows. I am including the people who in the past had expressed their "vote" in some fashion or people who commented in the RfC, whether in their own comments or comments on other peoples comments. Before I give you the results, I should like to point out that Nikkul made some mistakes in the list he had presented as a part of his comments. Here they are:

There were two mistakes made in the "Against Toda" list:

  1. Univerese=atom explicitly said here that in the matter of the Toda image debate he was neutral. See his edit here. So he cannot be counted in for or against.
  2. A user nareshkumar.pj (talk · contribs) made only two Talk:India edits after the Toda image arrived on the page, edit1 and edit2 in neither of them did he express any thoughts about the Toda image. So he cannot be counted either.

On the other side of the ledger a number of people who had wanted to keep the Toda image were not listed. Here they are:

  1. dab (𒁳) 11:45, 12 June 2007 (UTC) made this) edit, but he was not included in Nikkul's list
  2. Sumanth|Talk 12:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC) made this edit, but it was not included in Nikkul's list.
  3. Seraphiel 16:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC) made [ this] edit, but it too was not included in Rueben's list

Here are the votes:

Against keeping the Toda image:

Votes cast during the RfC
  1. ॐ Priyanath talk 03:16, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  2. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 01:39, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  3. KNM Talk 17:00, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  4. Samir 02:41, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
  5. Bakaman 23:34, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
  6. Nikkul 23:32, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
  7. Rueben lys (talk • contribs) 14:19, 6 October 2007 (This RfC)
  8. Thoreaulylazy (this RfC)
  9. Sarvagnya (this RfC)
  10. Blacksun (this RfC)
Votes "cast" in Talk page discussion during the period March to September 2007 i.e. before the RfC
  1. The Behnam (earlier)
  2. Gnanapiti (??)
  3. User-multi error: "Talk:India" is not a valid project or language code (help). (earlier)
  4. Indianstar (earlier)
  5. Dwaipayan (earlier)
  6. apurv1980 (earlier)
  7. Holy Ganga [1] (see below)

(Total "Against Toda" votes at the time (08:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC)) of RfC closing: 17)

  1. Amarrg —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 17:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC) (Added after RfC was closed. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC))
Nice try, fowler. When did the RfC start, when did it end, and who closed it? How come you have counted votes in "For keeping the Toda image" which were made in April and May and chose to ignore mine. Smacks of bias... -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 06:45, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
I posted the RfC on September 30 and I closed it a week later on October 8, when the pages were archived. No one is stopping you from adding your vote in the way it is displayed above; however, since the post-RfC discussion refers to the RfC results, it is not fair to change the actual results at the time the RfC was closed. I have now split the results into those cast during the RfC and those "cast" before it. Had I included only the "during RfC" votes, the decision would have been stronger for keeping the Toda image (as you can see in the new format). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

For keeping the Toda image:

Votes cast during the RfC
  1. =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:46, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  2. Wiki Raja —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiki Raja (talk • contribs) 01:43, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  3. Kathanar--Kathanar 02:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  4. Pharaoh of the Wizards —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk • contribs) 12:02, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
  5. Watchdogb 00:06, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
  6. deeptrivia (talk · contribs) 17:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
  7. GizzaDiscuss © 10:01, 7 October 2007 (UTC) (this RfC)
  8. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:42, 1 October 2007 (UTC) (This RfC)
  9. Taprobanus 13:31, 2 October 2007 (UTC) (This RfC)
  10. Sundar \talk \contribs 05:10, 3 October 2007 (UTC) (This RfC)
  11. Saravask 22:32, 6 October 2007 (UTC) (This RfC)
  12. Arvind 21:42, 2 October 2007 (UTC) (This RfC)
  13. Sinhala freedom 04:16, 3 October 2007 (UTC) see his/her edit here. Although this is not a straight vote for keeping the Toda image in the culture section, it certainly is vote for making a big effort to keep it in the article.
Votes "cast" before the RfC
  1. Abecedare 11:12, 26 April 2007 (UTC) (see his edit here)
  2. Deepak D'Souza (talk • contribs) 10:25, 26 April 2007 (UTC) (see his edit here
  3. dab (𒁳) 11:45, 12 June 2007 (UTC) See his edit here
  4. Sumanth|Talk) 12:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC) See his/her edit here
  5. Seraphiel 16:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC) See her/his edit here

(Total "For Toda" votes at the time (08:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC)) of the RfC closing: 18.

There is consequently no consensus for removing the Toda dairy image. The majority of the votes are for keeping it; and that goes for all votes (i.e. cast before the RfC and during it) as well as for votes cast or comments made during the RfC. (Each "for" vote has a time stamp and label that allows you to figure that out.)

Priyanath, I am now asking you in all good faith to restore the Toda image and remove that of Tagore until further options are clarified.

Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The split votes, not counting the fact that your("for toda" group) arguments for having it were unconvincing(to put it kindly) just go to show that there is no consensus to having the toda image... not for not having it! Nice try, though :) Sarvagnya 08:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Gee, after a Wiki-lifetime of crustiness you are showing me the smiley face? Methinks something is rotten in the State of Denmark. Just last week you left a not so smiley Only Warning on my talk page, which exhorted me to "stop edit warring against the consensus on the India page." When I took my discontent to ANI here, and the reviewing administrator agreed that the warning was unnecessary and removed it from my talk page, you not only slapped it back on again, but chose to expound on it on the admin's talk page. Why the new-found affability now? And where is that vaunted consensus that I was edit-warring against? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:59, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I see no consensus for keeping the Toda image. I believe a controversial image needs consensus for keep. Further, WP Policy, as quoted, clearly is against keeping a non-notable image that is not relevant to the article. RFC is not a 'vote'. And I certainly see no consensus for removing the Tagore image. I will not remove the Tagore image (and will replace if removed), but would consider my compromise proposals above for having more images in the Culture section. Short of those compromises, I propose an interim measure while the section is expanded and this can be discussed in the context of the expanded version: There is room in the section for three images - Taj, Tagore, Toda. I believe that sequence is also appropriate because they are in order of notability, and each image would be in the part of the article where they are mentioned (except for toda, which isn't mentioned at all in the article). This would also give the toda image 33% of the undue weight, less than it's current 50%. I'm asking you, Fowler, to show good faith also, just as I am showing. I'll wait for approval from others before taking this step. ॐ Priyanath talk 15:19, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
But how did the Tagore image get there in the first place. The way I remember it is that you couldn't stop chuckling when you stood in front of the mirror and mumbled India and Toda in one sentence. Here are your choices, (a) remove the Tagore image until all issues are resolved, (b) find me a Wikipedia policy that says chuckling in front of the mirror constitutes consensus (and be warned then that I can chuckle with the best of them). In other words, please remove the Tagore image as well. Let only the Taj image remain until all issues are resolved. If you don' remove the Tagore image I will take this to ANI. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

PS. As for expansion etc., senior people like Nichalp, Ragib, Saravask, Sundar, and other regular contributors like KnowledgeHegemony, Blacksun, U=A, Abecedare, and any others that I might have missed need to be consulted how much the article or section can be expanded by. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a beureaucracy, and none of the so called "senior" members own this article. I have left the suggestion in this page. I will post the outline, when it is ready, for recommendations of improvement, and then I will add it. I see a pattern emerging here where everything gets opposed on the basis of "consensus" and "senior members" and "page space" etc etc that is stopping this page from getting improved, and a core group of editors, one or two most prominently is cleverly gaming the system to oppose anything and everything that they dont want included. This includes the process of using RfCs and then threatening arbitrations and issuing warnings and ANI and what not. This needs to stop. And lets get this clear, there is no "senior" members.OK? Knowledgable yes, not more equal, allright? Your argument and edits are only as good as your references. Rueben lys 17:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Rueben, what do you think "Senior" means? That they are older and get a higher salary? Obviously in the context of Wikipedia, it means more experienced with how the India page works and where it is headed. Please stop projecting your own sensitivities on other people. No one has been unwelcoming to you. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:51, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
No body has been unwelcoming to me???!!!Fowler, when I remind you that you started reverting my first edits three months under various pretexts, intially accusing me of writing my own version of History, before dragging the matter out in an extended RfC with the most liberal utllisation of trolling I ever encountered, you're not about to suggest you wanted to make feel welcomed, are you? As for wikipedia working having more experienced editors determining the way an article is headed, you really do need draw the distinction between WP:OWN and WP:CONSENSUS. 19:41, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Please assume good faith, Fowler, and show good faith. Please also discuss the merits of the proposal, rather than ad hominem attacks against the person making the proposal. I believe the article is improved with all three photos per my suggestion, rather than just one (taj). I think the last thing we need here is another RfC, this time on the relevance of the Tagore image, or on my good faith proposal. I repeat it here so others can comment:

Image Proposal (copied from above): "I propose an interim measure while the section is expanded.... There is room in the section for three images - Taj, Tagore, Toda. I believe that sequence is also appropriate because they are in order of notability, and each image would be in the part of the article where they are mentioned (except for toda, which isn't mentioned at all in the article)."

P.S. I believe Fowler's proposal to have only one image in the Culture section, the Taj Mahal, also has merit as a compromise and is worth discussing. But I sincerely believe the article is better having the three images that I mention, since two of them are actually mentioned in the Culture section, and the Tagore image covers a wide swath of different aspects of Culture - literature, poetry, dance, music. ॐ Priyanath talk 16:48, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Just saw this. Will be in touch in a few hours. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:55, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
There's no hurry. It would be good to have feedback from others here for a few more days. Since the RfC was so evenly divided, and showed no consensus either way, some sort of compromise will be needed. Another RfC would be unfortunate. Perhaps there are some other potential solutions - right now we only have the two above. ॐ Priyanath talk 18:29, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
No. The section is long enough for us to have only two pics and we will have two pics. There isnt enough room for three pics and therefore we wont have a third pic. Even if we were to have a third pic, it wouldnt be Toda... not in the culture section perhaps not anywhere in the article considering the amount of opposition it has attracted. The only compromise I can think of is to gather the best pictures from across all states/(state)wikiprojects and rotate them article wide. Rotation can be as frequent as once in 2 or 3 days so that pictures from across the country get represented and nobody has to wait in queue for an inordinate amount of time to get featured on this article. This would also mean that there would be nothing sacrosanct about a pic of the Taj or of Nehru and Gandhi or an ajanta cave painting. Each pic will have its couple of days under the sun and then will go back to join the end of the queue. The maps can be spared. All this can be automated(I think) on the lines of Saravask's edit that I reverted yesterday. This way, there'll be something new and of interest in the article each day and we'll be spared of any more futile and pointless debates by the likes of Fowler with regards to pertinence, weight, word count, etc etc.,. Sarvagnya 05:37, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I can see that there's not enough room for three pics, especially with the long captions that each has, and which the toda photo has by neccessity since it's not mentioned anywhere in the article. I keep going back to having a photo representing the tribal history/culture/demographic somewhere else in the article - or in an (appropriately) expanded Culture section. I haven't heard any opposition to the idea of having a representative image of the tribal demographic in a relevant place in the article. I believe that's the compromise that everyone would be happy with. There is so much opposition, from so many editors, to the unrepresentative toda image, that it's clearly not the appropriate one. That means finding a more representative image, and looking at where to place it. I'm not crazy about the rotation idea, because it will probably mean everyone wanting this or that non-relevant image at the expense of relevant ones. Is there an example of that being done somewhere so we can see? ॐ Priyanath talk 15:18, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
You cannot count the votes the way you want, fowler and take everyone for a jolly ride. We are not jokers here to fall to your pranks. Show good faith and see that the count is 18:18 and not 17(?):18 based on your biased and down right funny arguments. -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 06:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
You "voted" 36 hours after the RfC was closed and archived (i.e. wasn't available to see on this page.) I've done two RfCs before this and each lasted a week. There are no specific Wikipedia guidelines about the length of the RfC, but you can't say that it wasn't advertised. It was advertised in three RfC lists (Societies, Arts and Media, and Religion); in addition it was advertised on the India notice board, on WikiProject Anthropology, WikiProject Music, WikiProject Arts, and on the Village Pump. A discussion had ensued here which referred to the results of the RfC. RfC are about building consensus and not about votes anyway. If I were playing by the book, I should have only included the votes cast during the RfC. Counting only those, the results are 13 to 10 for keeping the Toda dairy image. I included the previous "votes" because I was trying to be fair to the other side. Regardless of how you do your accounting there is no consensus for removing the Toda image, a Feature Picture that has already been on the India page for ten months. I think I am being fair in displaying your vote with the main results for everyone to see, but not including it in "count" which has already been referred to in the ensuing discussion. If you feel I am not, you are welcome to bring it up on WP:ANI. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:47, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
If you are starting an RfC, the ideal thing for you to do is to indicate when are you going to close the RfC, so that people will know. Landing up one fine day and suddenly announcing that you are closing the RfC, is not the right way. RfC are about building consensus and not about votes anyway - it was you who started counting the votes, it wasn't me... And please stop flashing the "Featured picture" card. The Toda Hut became a featured picture on various factors, least of which is its relation to India and its culture. It was featured more than an year ago and if I look at the Featured picture criteria, all points are related to the quality of the image and the only point where an article is mentioned is point no. 5 and if you look at the discussion which selected the Toda Hut image to be featured, the article mentioned is Toda people and not India. While its inclusion in Toda people article is perfectly relevant, its relevance to the India article is still questionable (will be questioned in future as well by new editors as and when they come in) as can be seen with the number of people who are against its inclusion. The image has already had sufficient advertisement in the India article for quite some time, its time we move on to better ones. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 14:59, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
User:Amarrg's quote: "RfC are about building consensus and not about votes anyway - it was you who started counting the votes, it wasn't me..."
No, it wasn't me either. The "vote" or "straw poll" was begun by user:Nikkul in his Comments by Nikkul. Nichalp and others questioned the poll. I made my own entreaties with him to remove the list, not least because it was reducing the complexity envisaged in the RfC and confusing people into thinking that the voting was mandatory. However, Nikkul and other "Against Toda" editors like user:Bakasuprman insisted on having the poll, confident that they had the "votes." Eventually, I gave up. However, when the votes were tallied, and they came out "For Toda," the other side began to complain.
Your suggestion about having a preset expiration date on an RfC, is, unfortunately, unworkable in practice. What determines the "end" is the quantity and the nature of traffic in the RfC and not a preset date. The last official comment was made by Rueben lys on October 6. After that the discussion, both within the RfC and without, began to focus on how to expand the article and with what.
Anyway, this is as far as I go with explaining my actions. You are welcome to pursue the matter further in the manner of your choosing. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Is the disruption being caused by the drive-bys?

I would also like the India page editors to look at this pagehistory utility. Please type: India and then wait a few moments. Notice that the total number of edits made by the "For Toda" team is almost ten times the total number of edits made by the "Against Toda" team. Notice also the large number of drive-bys, i.e. people who don't really work much on the India page but every once in a while come by and make a big splash. The last three disruptions have been caused by drive-bys. Rueben lys, Priyanath, and Throreaulylazy. When "in house" editors disagree like for example, Blacksun, or Indianstar, or others have done, it seldom causes any disruptions. user:Sarvagnya is, of course, by now a serial drive-by, the sum total of whose contributions to the India page are two ugly sentences: "Many classical dance forms exist, including bharatanatyam, kathakali, kathak, kuchipudi, manipuri, odissi and yakshagana," and a similar beauty about festivals. He held up work for many days in January with trying to get "yakshagana" in this list. After all that I found out yesterday, while I was reading the Britannica article on South Asian arts that the Sangeet Natak Academy (the principal official organization for music, dance, and theater, confers classical status on Indian dances. In the Britannica article which was from the late 70s only six dances were listed and Y. was not in it. Casually perusing the SNA web site, I discovered that they now award annual awards and fellowships in nine dances: bharatanatyam, kathakali, kathak, kuchipudi, manipuri, odissi, sattariya, mohiniattam, and something called chau. But Y. is not on that list. I have written to them to ask for a reliable source for the classical status. But my point remains: How come these people never want to help out with any real work? If this problem is not resolved, I see the India page getting bogged down in more and more recondite problems. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:45, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Do I need to dignify this benighted trash with a response? oh.. sheesh.. i just did. lucky you! huh. Sarvagnya 05:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
No the disruption is being caused by unscrupulous editors who are disallowing oters to make a contribution

Fowler, your dishonesty seems to sink lower and lower! In addition t the fact that you've categorised me as a drive by editor without understanding what drive by means, here's what I have to say. When I did start editing, you were the only person to repeatedly revert my edits by claiming they were controversial, too long in a short summary article, not well referenced, too long references etc etc. The result has come to be that I do not edit the India unless I see that it wont lead to a long drawn war of words with others, notably you. And BTW, my edits now are expressing opinions in the talk page, which is what it is meant for, it is not disruptive because I am not disrupting the article page.That it is entirely disagreeable with your strongly held opinion and to your dislike is not my problem. No doubt others will be forced to say the same thing.

You haven't yet shown us any reference secondary, teriary, qauternary, decanery whatever that says what culture in India is, all you've given is a class 12 sociology text book that tells us to be tolerant of each others cultre and not to start communal riots. I have. As for consensus on the RfC, I dont see any consensus, nor do I see the 1 week time as sufficuent for enough editors to express their opinion. Notably because you've overcrowded this page with your repeated and proggressively more disingenuous statements and dubious arguments on providing references.Rueben lys 11:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a free for all. If you want to have your contributions feature in a developed article, you need to deliver quality. F&f may come accross as rude sometimes, but without his constant criticism, this article would look much, much more dilettantic. You should thank him. dab (𒁳) 11:21, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately for you sir, Wikipedia is a free for all to whoever wishes to make a constructive edit and nobody, not fowler not my dad not George Bush owns it. I can and I will contribute in a manner I am capable of. If it is not up to the standards expected, improve it. And he comes accross as rude not sometimes, but all the times.And I should thank him for what??? For repeatedly being disruptive and picking fights and deleting other users contribs williy nilly??? Rueben lys 11:30, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
well said Nikkul 02:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
..."I am not taking part in this discussion of the Toda Hut image anymore because I am too tired of it. If any poll of some sort comes up about images in the "Culture" section, bitte (German for please) count me in it by reading what I have put in earlier posts (e.g. Mysore Palace discussion and others). Thank you"June 15... Quote from mysore palace discussion: "my alternative would be to replace the Toda Hut image with the Sari fabric image, partially because of its FP status (which is not a requirement but certainly a bonus), because of its high relevency to the text, and because of the beauty of the picture itself."(hence user favors replacing image with mysore palace. Nikkul 02:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
"I agree with Indianstar. There has been a lot of back and forth about which images are appropriate for the India page. One has to look revisit all the images on the India article. We can start with the what Indianstar has pointed out." he agreed with indiastar about what indiastar had said b4 "Current images does not fit relevance to contents and regional balance criteria.(E.g There are two tribal related images " when one agrees with another who opposes the image,he also opposes the image Nikkul 02:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

New section needed on Science and Technology

I proposed nearly a month ago adding a new section on Science and technology. I haven't had any responses to that. I will wait for a couple of weeks and if no suggestions are put forward, I will use Science and Technology in India as a template to add a new section. Rueben lys 00:06, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Please feel free to add information. Addition of pertinent info can never be a bad thing for an encyclopedia... in fact, the whole point of an encyclopedia is to have information. So, go ahead and add all you've got and we'll take it from there. Sarvagnya 06:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Hi Rueben, count me in to make contributions to this section. I dont think you need to wait sufficiently to get things moving. Science and Technology is a must where we can talk of Vedic Mathematics, Raman Effect, Ayurveda and the like. I am a late entrant in this article but have been closely watching the goings on. I think its time to move on to better things than dog kennel (read Toda Hut) related discussions -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 16:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I think this needs to be discussed more. I will sound out the others. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:21, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Religion section

I propose adding a religion section which right now exists only as a part of demographics. Religion is an integral part of human life; more so in India. Also, India being the place where various streams of religious and philosophical thought coalesced, it makes sense to treat it at some length. Religion in india is more than just the oft-repeated 80% hindu, 15% muslim, 2% christian and 3% - the rest statistic. These religions (including the likes of Buddhism, Jainism have co-existed in India for over a thousand years, perhaps something that no other country in the world can claim. Religion has dictated social and political thought processes in India since ages and continues to do so (this in fact, is true in almost every other part of the world, perhaps in varying degrees) A crisp section, tracing the evolution and dynamics(social and political) of various strands of religious and philosophical thought will surely add to the quality of the article. As also will some information of how the coming together of various religions led to enduring developments in the area of fine art, culture and philosophic thought. The Karnataka article has Religion as a subsection of "Culture".. though it is far(very) from perfect, I feel it is a start and could perhaps serve as a template for the India article. Sarvagnya 06:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we are ready for a religion section (or, in fact even a sub-section). Many other things need to be stabilized first. Anyway, why don't we have a vote on it first? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

For a new religion section:

Against a new religion section:

Neutral:

  • I believe we should wait until the article is expanded and see if there is a substantial amount of information religion at that time. Before then, I think religion should be expanded in the culture section along with the passing references in demographics and history. It is important, but I'm not sure how important relative to everything else. GizzaDiscuss © 08:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Misspellings

Jewellry should be Jewelry —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.53.174.121 (talk) 17:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Tribal house

For those wondering about the image. The dwelling in question is located within the city limits of Mumbai in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park on the way to the Kanheri Caves. Tribals do inhabit the park. So this is for all those out there who feign their ignorance about tribal India. Fowler's guess is pretty close, and the lush environs is because it was taken in the month of August. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:44, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

That's amazing! I'm impressed by the raised foundations and the shingled roofs. Thanks! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:22, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
This has nothing to to with tribes or 'tribal india'. Houses like this with tiled roofs are commonly found all over the south(i havent seen much of north, so i dont know) both in rural and urban(outskirts) areas. A more 'affluent' (and 'two-storeyed') version of the same type of 'building' would look like this or this. The two pictures are from Chikkamagalur in Malnad where these houses with tiled roofs is the norm. In fact, it is the signature style of all of Malnad. Such constructions are equally common in Kerala and some parts of rural Tamil Nadu and Andhra. Sarvagnya 01:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Is Malnad a hill station? I ask because such construction, especially of the kind shown in your photographs, would typically (in north and northeast India) be associated with hill-stations, and would likely be a British influenced style. (If I had to guess the provenance of the buildings, in your first photograph, I'd say 1930s British inspired.) It is found hill rural areas as well, but that too is a budget version of the urban style. The rural style (as seen in late 19th century British photographs of Himalayan villages) was different. Anyway, very interesting. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:21, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
PS And no, neither Nichalp nor I was implying that the style had anything to do with tribal India, I was just expressing surprise that it has appeared in tribal India in the first place. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Malnad is a generic term used to refer to all those districts of Karnataka that fall in the Western Ghats. Yes, hills, streams, waterfalls and coffee estates dot the landscape wherever you go; Karnataka's tallest peaks are in the region(in fact, quite close to Chikkamagalur) but Chikkamagalur for example, isnt usually counted as a hill 'station' like Ooty or Darjeeling. Madikeri's got to be Karnataka's most popular/famous 'hill station'. As for that style of construction, its typical of all of Malnad, even the non-hilly parts of Malnad.. like coastal Mangaluru. And even outside Malnad, the style is quite common in rural areas of Karnataka and the rest of Southern India. Sarvagnya 05:55, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

New NCERT Books and History Section

To: Rueben lys, Dab, Dwaipayan, Nichalp, Da Gizza, Abecedare, Sarvagnya, Hornplease, Knowledge-Hegemony, Priyanath, any others I might have missed. I thought it might be good to get our minds of the bickering and focus on something else: History. As many of you probably know the new NCERT books (for high-school students in India) for history and other fields have been coming out for some time now. They were written up in the New York Times about a month ago. They are available free on-line (go to: http://www.ncert.nic.in and then look for online textbooks) and I have added links to a number of chapters below. Obviously, they are not reliable secondary sources, but they are based on reliable secondary sources; just go to the last page and see their references. It seems that after 60 years of independence, (as with the Indian economy), the official historiography in India, after many ideological incarnations, finally has been floated on the market of international scholarship. For example, in the Indus Valley Civilization chapter, there is no more of the tongue twisting mumbo-jumbo of Saraswati-Sindhu-Gagghar-Hakra. It is simply Harappan or Indus. Same with many of the other topics. No more the "First war of independence," it is now simply the "Revolt of 1857." Finally also, after 60 years, there is a belated acknowledgment of the partition and its emotional cost. I am leaving them for perusal below. Their structure is not always linear, and they don't always focus on one topic, but they still might be useful as a general benchmark. It would be great if you could take a look at them, and feel free to leave comments about how Wikipedia might benefit from them. They are quite sophisticated for high-school. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:22, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Here they are. (BTW, these are not the controversial books of the BJP era.) And I am not suggesting, even by a long stretch that we use these as references, but that our articles be at least at the level of sophistication (especially methodological sophistication) displayed in these book chapters. That is currently not the case. Consider two WP pages: Indus Valley Civilization (a former FA) and Vijayanagara Empire (a current FA) (and related articles, Vijayanagara, Vijayanagara Architecture, Hampi). The corresponding book chapters below (although concentrating on a few things) nonetheless display a great deal more methodological sophistication. The Wikipedia IVC article is still in shambles because of various ideological wars; and the Wikipedia Vijayanagara Empire although an FA is a straight forward linear narrative (with a lot of facts but with no analysis or broad themes), and unaware, apparently, of Burt Stein's classic on the subject (that the high-school book references).

  • NCERT History I-1 (2007), "Bricks, Beads, and Bones: The Harappan Civilisation", in National Council of Educational Research and Training (ed.), Themes in Indian History I, vol. Class XII (NEW), New Delhi: NCERT {{citation}}: External link in |chapter= (help); Unknown parameter |publication-year= ignored (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link).
  • NCERT History I-4 (2007), "Thinkers, Beliefs, and Buildings: Cultural Developments", in National Council of Educational Research and Training (ed.), Themes in Indian History I, vol. Class XII (NEW), New Delhi: NCERT {{citation}}: External link in |chapter= (help); Unknown parameter |publication-year= ignored (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link).
  • NCERT History II-7 (2007), "An Imperial Capital: Vijayanagara", in National Council of Educational Research and Training (ed.), Themes in Indian History II, vol. Class XII (NEW), New Delhi: NCERT {{citation}}: External link in |chapter= (help); Unknown parameter |publication-year= ignored (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link).
  • NCERT History II-9 (2007), "Kings and Chronicles: The Moghul Courts", in National Council of Educational Research and Training (ed.), Themes in Indian History II, vol. Class XII (NEW), New Delhi: NCERT {{citation}}: External link in |chapter= (help); Unknown parameter |publication-year= ignored (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link).
  • NCERT History III-11 (2007), "The Rebels and the Raj: The Revolt of 1857 and its representations", in National Council of Educational Research and Training (ed.), Themes in Indian History III, vol. Class XII (NEW), New Delhi: NCERT {{citation}}: External link in |chapter= (help); Unknown parameter |publication-year= ignored (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link).
  • NCERT History III-12 (2007), "Colonial Cities: Urbanisation, Planning, and Architecture", in National Council of Educational Research and Training (ed.), Themes in Indian History III, vol. Class XII (NEW), New Delhi: NCERT {{citation}}: External link in |chapter= (help); Unknown parameter |publication-year= ignored (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link).
  • NCERT History III-13 (2007), "Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement: Civil Disobedience and Beyond", in National Council of Educational Research and Training (ed.), Themes in Indian History III, vol. Class XII (NEW), New Delhi: NCERT {{citation}}: External link in |chapter= (help); Unknown parameter |publication-year= ignored (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link).
  • NCERT History III-14 (2007), "Understanding Partition: Politics, Memory, Experience", in National Council of Educational Research and Training (ed.), Themes in Indian History III, vol. Class XII (NEW), New Delhi: NCERT {{citation}}: External link in |chapter= (help); Unknown parameter |publication-year= ignored (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I think it would serve only to undermine Wikipedia's credibility if High school level textbooks are used as reference. There have also been newspaper reports about various inaccuracies in these books. In any case, I suggest NOT to use school level textbooks as references in any form here, when we have a sea of scholarly references available. Thanks. --Ragib 02:18, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Will we be scanning NCER-certified kindergarden level books in the future to see if the Toda's are represented in there too? Nikkul 04:03, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

why the hostility? These are citable sources like any other. We cannot treat anything in them as fact, but we can certainly refer to them. These will be valuable mostly for referencing uncontroversial statements, while of course more difficult topics will need a closer look based on scholarly sources, but even there, it might be useful to refer to the NCERT take on things as a first approximation. dab (𒁳) 09:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

See NCERT controversy. Not that the new books mentioned by Fowler fall under this, but NCERT books, like the school text books in most South Asian countries, are often re-written according to the current Government. Also, this shows that NCERT books are often not RS, as they contain misstatements. So, it is urgent that we keep ourselves limited to scholarly work when looking for references. --Ragib 09:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I am aware of the "NCERT controversy". Just because the BJP government turned "education" into a farce doesn't necessarily mean each subsequent government is doing the same. We'll have to rely on academic reviews of these books just as for any other publication. dab (𒁳) 10:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Text book in Indian schools. It is now the propaganda tool for most political parties. America is evil is some books. It's better not to talk about them. Chanakyathegreat 12:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC) Chanakyathegreat 12:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

let's wait until we can cite some reviews of these books. If they are good, we can cite them here. If they are just another round in childish state propaganda, we can cite them at NCERT controversy. Deciding this is up to academic reviewers, not to us. dab (𒁳) 15:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Replacing Taj image

It's for a long time the Taj image is there. I am replacing it with the Bodh Gaya image. Give an opportunity to readers to know about the other Indian architectures. Chanakyathegreat 12:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I reverted your change. The Taj Mahal is an icon of Indian culture. Perhaps you want to petition for your image to be ADDED, but I can't see there being consensus for the removal of the Taj Mahal. 13:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rangek (talk • contribs)
readers interested in Indian architecture are advised to visit Indian architecture (doh). --dab (𒁳) 15:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Taj Mahal is not only the icon of Indian culture. Consider Bodhgaya. It's as iconic as the Taj Mahal. That image need a change since it is there for a long time.. Those who support the change with Bodhgaya image can vote here. Chanakyathegreat 12:23, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree, on many levels. Bodhgaya is not as iconic as the Taj Mahal. If it is, you need reference to back that up. My assertion is backed by the fact that the current consensus, as determined by the historical record of this article, indicates that the Taj Mahal is among the most important icons of Indian culture. If something is the most important, or best, or whatever the criteria is for having an image in an article, then there will be one image that meets those criteria best. That will most likely not change with time. The concept of "rotation" is simply broken. The article should be in its best shape possible every time someone visits it-- not arbitrarily changing from time to time. Rangek 19:47, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Seems you don't know the significance of Bodhgaya. It's the birth place of Buddhism. It's an UNESCO world heritage site. Is there any rule that state that Taj Mahal being iconic can only be represented in the article and everything else is anathema. Don't think that other architectural marvels are not worth since they don't get the publicity. Since there are other architectural marvels that are unknown to most people and since Taj is there for a long time, I prefer a change. Let there be opinion and voting and changes can be made accordingly. Chanakyathegreat 14:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I did not say that Bodhgaya was not notable, or important, or anything. I merely said it is not as iconic as the Taj Mahal. Not having the Taj Mahal image on the India page is like having an article on lions without a picture of a male lion with a full mane. Most lions don't have manes, but that picture of the dominant male with a full mane is what people think of first when they think lion. As dab stated above, "readers interested in Indian architecture are advised to visit Indian architecture". Rangek 16:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

The iconic image is what appears in the media. Wikipedia must not be restricted to just what the media portrays. It must reflect all possibilities and culture of India. Hence the rotation policy is necessary. From the iconic point of view we have many such marvels like the Taj, which don't get enough publicity and hence is unknown to many. Chanakyathegreat 03:51, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

What the page most needs in light of the recent RfC

Here are my proposals in light of the recent RfC.

  1. Since there was certainly no consensus to remove the Toda image, and there is no consensus to keep the Tagore image (it hasn't even been considered), I am proposing that until the following issues are sorted out, we rotate the Toda and Tagore images on a daily basis as implemented by user:Saravask in this edit.
  2. I am proposing that during the next 30 days we first work on copy-editing (back to FA quality prose in summary style) and sourcing the following sections:
    1. Government. (The sources are probably OK, but the prose needs to be upgraded.)
    2. Politics. (Prose + Sources).
    3. Foreign relations and the military. (Prose + Sources).
    4. Subdivision. (Needs labeled area template as in FA Peru: Regions).
    5. Economy. (Prose needs an upgrade and the sources need to be double checked)
    6. Demographics (Prose + Sources-double check)
    7. Culture (Prose + Sources)
    8. History (Sources. I will have the IIM article ready in two weeks time.)
  3. Concurrently, we should have a discussion on what new sections (if any) or expansions might be needed. However, nothing new should be attempted until the basic work of prose improvement and sourcing is finished (which shouldn't involve more than a 10% expansion). We do not want an India page with the core sections in poor shape, and in addition, new sections in various states of dress and undress.
  4. Lastly, the daughter articles, like Geography of India, Religion in India, Culture of India, and others need work. Any new section or sub-section addition should come from a daughter article that already exists and in reasonably good shape, and not, for example like Science and Technology in India, which is still in the works, or Folk and Tribal Culture in India, which hasn't even begun yet.

I urge you to think it through with a cool head. In my opinion it is the best of the options we have. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:50, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the article needs work, and much along the lines Fowler mentions above. It also needs some new sections that other users have suggested. Messy as it will be, I think both can proceed at the same time, if the other editors can't wait. While the work is being done, I believe the Tagore image should remain, since it's arguably the one image that covers the widest swath of material in the Culture section. One of the projects we can take on is finding an image that is representative of the tribal/minority demographic, and then placing it in the appropriately re-written/expanded section. Perhaps editors can propose a variety of potential images showing dance, art, festivals, as Rueben Iys has suggested. As the article is written now, the toda image is not appropriate, or appropriately placed, but I believe that an appropriate image can be found and agreed upon.
P.S. Personal attacks and incivility, such Fowler's attack against Sarvagnya above, will not help this process. I suggest a retraction would be appropriate, and further attacks stopped.ॐ Priyanath talk 16:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm willing to copy-edit once the article structure has been sorted out. Saravask 23:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
PS I have removed the remarks and apologized, but the Tagore image has no consensus; as you know there were more votes for keeping the Toda dairy image than for removing it and replacing it by any other image. It has to be (a) only Taj Mahal, (b) the rotation I mention, and (c) all three, which will likely be too crowded. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
There was no consensus for the toda image. It was evenly split, which is not consensus. There hasn't been an RfC on the Tagore image, so we haven't determined that yet. I would be happy to start that process, but I think it would be a waste of time. Far better would be to proceed with improving the article, adding to the culture section, and finding an image representing the tribal culture/demographic that will have strong consensus. It will continue to waste our time that could be better spent with improvements. Look how much interest there has been in seriously working on the article now that we have (hopefully) moved forward from the toda image.
P.S. Fowler, I think everyone greatly appreciates the removing of those comments. I think if everyone stays cool(er), there will be much more real editing. ॐ Priyanath talk 00:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Priyanath. The Toda image was there as a result of a previous consensus a year ago. No objections were voiced until Nikkul started the drumbeat in March. There were more votes for keeping the Toda image than for removing it. That means there is no consensus for removing it. You cannot say there is no consensus for keeping something that has already been there for one year. You replaced the Toda image unilaterally with Tagore and with edit summaries that were laced with contempt and parody. You kept repeating "grass hut" over and over again. It wasn't me who came up with "putting the culture back on the culture page," it was you. This is the last time I will request you to either (a) remove Tagore, or (b) agree to the rotation implemented by Saravask. If you don't do either by tomorrow morning, I will take this not only to ANI, but eventually to Arbcom. I have frankly waited long enough, have apologized, when you saw no need to apologize (and still haven't) for your contemptuous humor. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:05, 10 October 2007 (UTC) (Removed ambiguity. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC))
I think we should replace the Ajanta Caves image with the Taj image since the Ajanta image is very unclear. This has been proposed before,and there has been mention of moving the Taj image (to the history section) because the Taj has more to do with History than with culture. If we do this, we can then free up the culture section images. Nikkul 16:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
While the current sections do need improvements, I see no need for waiting to add new sections. Not all people might be interested to edit the Culture section where as they may have interesting things to add into say a Science and Technology section. As long as the new sections are maintained in an FA quality, I dont see much issue. And I see no point in the reasoning that the daughter articles of the new sections should be in a good shape before they make it into the India article; since conversely a well written section in the India article can be a starting point for a good daughter article. -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 17:01, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Fowler that improving the prose and references is a good thing to do, but wouldn't neccessarily say this is an overwhelming priority such that everything else should be put on hold. Moreover, one or afew editors can work on the prose and references thing. As for new section on things like science and technology or religion, I dont see why the state of the daughter article should have any bearing whatsoever on the inclusion of such a subsection. In fact a number of FA articles (eg Satyajit Ray) has daughter articles that are probably start class or stub class. Including these is both a good source of drawing contribution, as well as improving the India article itself. Also on the issue of new sections, a section on religion, I believe is a very good idea, and would definitely improve the article and also emphasise the diversity that Fowler mentioned earlier. Rueben lys 19:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

No, a section on religion is not a good idea. At present status, the article tells about religious demography. And some religious festivals have been touched in culture. Any other aspect of religion (such as communal riots etc) can be added in History, if those deserve mention. Please see Religion in India for potential religious topics. However, no separate section on religion is needed. Country articles usually should not have religion section. Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries.--Dwaipayan (talk) 21:11, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Dwaipayan, the current India article is in anyways not following the Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries in toto. For example, the article does not talk of communications and transportation (mentioned in the WikiProject) while it does talk of Foreign relations and military. With India's and Indian's close association with religion, a good representation on the aspects of religion in India is a must in the article. If not a section, atleast a decent paragraph on the lines of Indonesia. The same goes for transportation, as well, which is currently zilch in India article -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 01:42, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
I have to confess I didn't notice this, and I agree with Dwaipayan. One more thing is, I think the Government section might benefit with some inclusion of local governments, ie, the Panchayati govts that exists in some (or all???) states.(I might have overlooked this). Also in foreign relation and millitary, it mentions the sino-Indian war, but doesn't mention the impact on Sino-Indian relationship and the changes happening now. Given that these two are now quite prominent, it might deserve a sentence. One other thing is, United States was quite close to India till the 1970s (It had quite a significant role in the Indian Space Program), so it is not entirely black and white.Rueben lys 23:18, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Those specific expansions/additions sound reasonable to me. Saravask 23:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I also agree with Dwaipayan that a separate religion section isn't needed. I do think, and suggested earlier, that religion has such a big impact on Culture that it needs a much stronger and articulated mention in the Culture section. For example, the list of festivals doesn't even mention that nearly all are based on religion. Much of art, dance, and architecture (temples) has strong religion influences. I think this can be done in a non-controversial way, and just in the Culture section. ॐ Priyanath talk 00:16, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Fowler&folwer«Talk» on putting things on hold during the next or so until the basic work listed above is taken care of. Also, I would like to point out the name of the daughter articles. Shouldn't the following articles have an s at the end? For example:

  • Religions of India
  • Cultures of India
  • Folk and Tribal Cultures of India

The reason being is that there are more than one religion in India namely Hinduism including it's various sects, Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Islam? Also, I understand that there is only one India and one Indian nationality, but within India itself are different cultures. For example, Punjabi culture, Tamil culture and Assamese culture each have their uniqueness. Also, the same can be said about the numerous Folk and Tribal cultures throughout India (ex: certain tribals of Tamil Nadu and Nagaland). Lastly, in my opinion the Toda hut picture should remain on the India page to show the diversity. Regards. Wiki Raja 07:48, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It should either be "Religions of India" or "Religion in India." (I guess I would prefer the latter.) Those two have slightly different meanings to be sure, but IMO they are better than "Religion of India." The other two, I think, would be better worded as "Culture in India" and "Folk and Tribal Culture in India." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:05, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
The religion article is in fact called Religion in India but the culture article is currently at Culture of India. GizzaDiscuss © 08:12, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

fwiiw, we also have Culture of the United States. I suppose this is just "culture" as an uncountable. Conversely, "tribal cultures" should be considered countable. dab (𒁳) 09:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Right discussions starting new sections should be put on hold and improving what we already have should be done. Its better if we do things one at a time. The guideline on what work is needed where, has already been mentioned many times. Hence I feel, still a lot of work is needed on improving what we already have. KnowledgeHegemony 12:53, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Here are some links that show extremely fine examples of folk and tribal art. I think there is general agreement that there needs to a relevant representation in the article. If we can find a good PD image (Nikkul, can you help?), it would add real value to the article. If these don't qualify, they do show that there must be an excellent image that could represent folk and tribal culture. ॐ Priyanath talk 16:03, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

What the page needs most in light of the recent RfC (continued)

(To KnowledgeHegemony), why is improving on what we already have a hindrance to adding new stuff? If somebody (or a few editors) start cleaning up the article for prose etc, why does everyone else have to stand back and lose creativity? Do you see how the WP:CONSENSUS interpretation and team work in this article has destroyed its wikiness on which it relied to reach the very FA status that the "core" editors are trying to protect? It is bordering on a group ownership. Consensus can be good thing only when applied wisely. There is a difference between being protective and being possesive. I am honestly concerned.Rueben lys 23:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

  • I do not like the Tagore image. I personally find it dull and showing the picture of the person is not that useful. Maybe an image that depicted his work would be better. However, who the hell cares what he looked like in context of the culture text. There are far better choices than Tagore image, including the Toda image. The RFC was never FOR the Tagore image and I personally did not vote for its inclusion when I voted against Toda image. --Blacksun 09:58, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

The Tagore image should be reverted back to the Toda since there was a debate on the image, and changing the image without a clear consensus is disruptive to civilized debate. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:04, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

No images on South India, Rotation etc.,.

I see absolutely zero images from South India. India is a diversified country and all regions should be summarily represented. While it will be difficult to ensure that all states get representative images, the least that can be assured is that bigger geographical regions get a representation. South India has on offer images like:


and many more. And no, not the Toda Image, which is hardly representative of anything, let alone South India. East India, which was also not represented, now has a good Rabindranath Tagore image. The fact that it is the sole representative of that region is a good enough reason for it to remain in the article.

Since this proposal of mine is bound to attract a no, no, no way by the Toda group, (since that's what they say for any changes to the article), I have a suggestion. Since this is going to be a perennial question which will crop up time and again, I think we should have a rotation policy for images in each section. We can select may be 7 good images in each section and then rotate them one by one per week, images which are good and those that reflect the diversity of India. If people are not open to this, I am proposing to replace the Ajanta image with a South Indian one for two reasons:

  1. The image is no where near any good quality or visually appealing, though it is a featured picture
  2. Two images for Maharashtra, (other one being the BSE) is too much of weight for just one state of India. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 17:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes... like I'd already proposed above, I think rotation is the way to go. I am positive that it can be implemented by combining the rotation mechanism for featured pics being used on the India Portal and Saravask's mechanism. On the Portal:India page, I think there's just one subpage being used for the pic mechanism. Here, let us have a subpage for each section (Economy, History, Culture etc.,) and let us start by categorising all the good pics we have under those categories.
Categorising all the pics that have been featured until now on the India portal and other state portals will be a good place to start. I'm confident that the nitty-gritties can be worked out but people have to come around to accepting rotation 'in principle' atleast. Otherwise, we'll be having the same problems and same pointless debates in future also. There's almost four times as many states and union territories in India as there are sections in this article. Even if we expanded the article enough to fit two pics in every section, there's going to be discontent about some region/state or the other being under-represented.
Also, with rotation, there is going to be nothing sacrosanct or "icon(ic)" about any picture. The Mysore palace or the Brihadeeshwara temple(that 'South Indian Hindu temple') will be treated on par with the Taj(that 'North indian muslim cemetry'). A pic of Infosys or of Tidel park(from the Chennai article) will compete on equal terms with the BSE pic. And so on.. I hope further discussion will center around how we are going to implement the rotation scheme rather than whether to even adopt it or not. And if rotation isnt an option for the usual suspects, I too insist that the Ajanta pic should go for the reasons Amar cites. Sarvagnya 17:44, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to be rude, but the "rotation" idea strikes me as stupid. It almost sounds as if there were people who enjoy the endless image discussion this page specializes in. Imagine we can have them every month! --dab (𒁳) 17:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi dab, instead of commenting on an idea as "stupid", if you have a better idea to end the image issue once and for all, please bring it to the table. It all started with the continued insistence of few people on the Toda image and will surely spread to other images as well. Currently, rotation seems to be a "workable" solution, lets give it a try. If not for anything, I am sure that it will reduce the copious amount of bickering that currently goes on for images. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 01:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
With all due respects, nothing could be more stupid than continuing to hold on dogmatically to something that clearly is not working.. atleast not without lot of people losing lot of sleep over it. There has to be a less stressful way of doing this and I dont see why we shouldnt give rotation a try. If it works, then we have a model for all of wikipedia to follow(if it suits their convenience ie.,). If it works, it will also mean that it will free up a lot of time of a lot of people here to actually work on improving other aspects of the article instead of bickering over images on the talk page. Even if it doesnt work as well as we'd like it to, it certainly cant end up worse than what it is now.
I originally opposed this idea when Sarvagnya first suggested it, but I'm beginning to see the wisdom behind it. Even if the toda image had been relevant and/or notable for the article, it still shouldn't have been a permanent fixture, forever eliminating more relevant and notable images — or images that showed more diverse aspects of Indian Culture. And imagine having this discussion only once a month! What joy! (though I think it wouldn't come to that). ॐ Priyanath talk 18:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Rotation has been talked about before: F&f rotation1, F&f rotation2, F&f rotation3, F&f permanent fixture? As you can see, I too had once entertained such thoughts; however, I now feel, in an FA like India, the quality of the picture is very important. If the India pages had a surfeit of Featured Pictures or even near-Featured-Picture-quality pictures, rotation would be another thing. I still don't understand why there isn't more of a push to get India-related pictures featured. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
This "push" should come from within,Fowler. I have tried to get numerous india images featured. I also support deleting the Ajanta caves image because one can barely makeout anything andit doesnt show much. I think if we move the Taj image to the history section where the ajanta imageis not, wecan have more space for the culture section. It can be under thetitle: "The Taj Mahal was built under islamic rule in india" or something like that. The ajanta image is dull. Nikkul 20:42, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
There is some benefit in a "rotation" system but the biggest problem with it is that the image debate will never go away. Half of the discussions here would be forever about images. Perhaps we should try to feature pictures from regions not represented here at the moment, add those and leave it there. GizzaDiscuss © 22:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
The status quo is not working. These debates are causing us to neglect other issues (referencing, copy-editing). I am one of those who prefer the Toda, Apatani, and Ajantha images, but I also agree with Blacksun: it's time to move on.
Read Raul's fifth law. Others will come along and fight to replace whatever images we (ultimately) agree upon here. We need a smart solution to prevent such episodic and time-wasting deadlock.
We should offload all of this "which image belongs here" stuff to (Portal:India/Selected picture candidates. There, people can propose or argue for the promotion of whatever image(s) they want. We should use the Portal:India/Selected pictures image pool to stock the "article-wide rotations" proposed by Sarvagnya.
If we don't try something new, this will never end: more and more new people will come along, saying "but BIMARU, which has almost 400 million people, is not represented". They will argue against the Taj pic, against Ajantha (we're already beginning to see now). Meanwhile, traffic to this site continues to rise ... Saravask 00:08, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
I've pretty much echoed above what Saravask says here. I hope we can, without further ado, start exploring the means and logistics of putting this rotation thing in place. Sarvagnya 01:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes please, this is the way forward. And I dont see the need for "only featured pictures" to make it to the article, a good near-featured picture is good enough. -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 01:30, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes to rotation. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 01:44, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Note - I have created this page. Further comments are on the same page. Request everyone to take a look. And Saravask, do you think your mechanism can draw from a pool like this? Is it workable? Please weigh in. Sarvagnya 01:48, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I just left a note to Nikkul on his talk page here. I thought it would be good for people to take a look at the comment. Sarvagnya 02:47, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Section break

Hi, Sarvagnya. One possibility is that your subpage be made into a single template. It should accept one parameter: {{{subject}}}. "Subject" can be "culture", "history", or whatever. The template itself would match this parameter with internal lists of images along with their respective captions. Another idea is to have a bot auto-rotate hard-coded images directly—no template needed. This would cut down on page load times. Ganeshk is a professional programmer who speaks ParserFunctions better than I do. He also programs bots (see Ganeshbot); we can ping him about using Ganeshbot. Saravask 03:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
I kind of get the drift of what you're saying.. but not entirely comfortable with the technicalities myself. I've pinged Ganesh for help. In the meanwhile would you be able to put together the template mechanism in your sandbox? To me, the template sounds like the 'least resistance path' for now. A bot may take longer to code and we could probably adopt it in the long run. Let's see what Ganesh has to say. Sarvagnya 03:37, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes. We can test it in one section. Saravask 23:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
This bot would require dedicated hosting to run continuously and change the images on a timer. A bot running on the m:Toolserver may be an option. I currently do not have the expertise and the access required to set this up at the Toolserver. Please check with WP:BOTREQ, someone might volunteer to help. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 01:11, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
The discussion whether rotation should be implemented on the India page, should be conducted on this page and not cloistered away somewhere else. If the decision is made to go with rotation, fine, the action could move elsewhere, but not until then. I am not as hopeful about this scheme as Saravask (even though a year ago I was advocating rotation myself as I indicated above). A number of issues need to be considered:
  1. Is rotation needed? Clearly at least two country FAs manage without it, as well as the on-line tertiary sources.
    1. Australia September 2006, Australia October 2007
    2. Bangladesh September 2006, Bangladesh October 2007
    3. Britannica Online and Encarta Online too manage without rotation.
  2. A conscientious editor on the India page, could treat the new rotation idea as a blessing in disguise, since it might get the argumentation and debate out of the way. But that editor then has two choices: (a) trust people whose past choices of images were demonstrated by what they supported here, or here or, (b) get in the fray themselves. Clearly (a) is not a good choice, because the images selected for the India page, could suffer in quality, and in their wake cause the very time-wasting deadlocks we are trying to avoid; however, (b) is not much better. It is really the current situation in disguise, the difference being that the conscientious editor is now spending time arguing on some other page, but arguing nonetheless, and not editing text.
That is the reason why I think image quality is very important; the Wikipedia Featured Picture process makes the image decision making more objective and less prone to personal or group biases. As I mentioned earlier, I still don't see why so little effort has been made to get India-related pictures featured. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Images that arent featured pictures are not inferior to other images. And an images quality is not defined by whether or not it is a featured picture. Certain photos can have 900*900 resolution and can be featured picture quality, but will never attain that status. Relevancy is more important. We've already had this discussion before. Nikkul 05:30, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Rotation is needed because the featured countries mentioned above are not even remotely as diverse as India is; with respect to language, culture, arts and variety. A featured picture is a featured picture because of various reasons and not because of its association with any country. Insistence of featured picture is not a requirement for an article to qualify/remain as an FA and the two articles that have been pointed out (Australia and Bangladesh) contain very few featured pictures. And its high time that Fowler stops his "holier than thou" attitude ridiculing other editors for nominating pictures (by the way, he himself says that there is no effort being made for featuring India related images and taunts editors who have made the effort. What does he want finally?). Also, may I point out that his nomination for getting a picture featured was not a smooth-sailing effort either and invited considerable opposition as well. -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 06:14, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
>>> Quoted by: "Also, may I point out that his nomination for getting a picture featured was not a smooth-sailing effort either and invited considerable opposition as well."
The proper link is this because it shows that the true status of the nomination. I was going to include that example, but didn't in the end because I thought it would be gloating on my part. Do you know what the picture is? It is a historic picture of the Taj Mahal taken by photographer Samuel Bourne in 1869. It hasn't been turned down; the decision awaits receipt of the high-res version from the British Library. If the image wasn't great, the Wikipedia FP people wouldn't still be waiting (four months later) on the nomination, they would have summarily dismissed the picture like they did the other two I mentioned above. I submitted the best resolution public domain scan of the image that was available at that time, knowing fully well that the resolution was low. (Please see Indian star's comments as well.) Mick Stephenson, a profession photographer, and a regular on WP:FP discussions, had this to say:
Mick then himself contacted the British Library and is in extended negotiations with them, not just for the Bourne image, but other BL images as well. And guess who opposed the nomination with these comments, "Oppose' - cant see anything special in this photograph except that its claimed to be very old. And the 'historic' pitch is moot because this photo doesnt show anything about the Taj that we cant see today."? The fact that these same people, and now you, are aspiring to be the arbiters of the next generation of images that go on the India page, doesn't give me much confidence. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:52, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Shall I make it more clear. There were issues and oppositions in the images that others wanted to be featured and there were issues and oppositions to the image that you wanted to be featured (not just one single opposition that you have biasedly mentioned above, but others as well). But that does not give you any right to ridicule or taunt or say that the other nominations were useless where as yours was better. By the way, I dont need a confidence vote from you. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 09:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

No images from (Region X) is not really a good argument. Are there any images from, say, West Bengal or Assam or any of the seven sister states? What about Punjab? When you start demanding pictures from South India, each state can ask for a photo of its own in this page. And pretty soon, we have a huge photo gallery of all states of India .... that, by any measure, won't be a pretty sight. --Ragib 06:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes.. we are in fact, contemplating representing all states equally (and not just regions) and that precisely is why we need rotation. Once we have a bot(hopefully) taking care of it.. it will simply run through a pool of pictures and choose the next one in the list. If there is a shortage of pics for any state, it will simply move on to find the next pic/state. In the unlikely case of there being no pics at all from a particular state, there's very little or nothing we can do. Its unfortunate and we'll have to live with it. Sarvagnya 06:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Ragib, if not me, some one in future, will raise the same question again, leading to same old arguments. We want to close this issue once and for all by implementing a rotation policy. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 06:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, in that case I'd have to say the rotation idea is very dumb. India has, at last count, 28 states, and 7 union territories. Are you suggesting a rotation of 35 images by a bot? Such instability would certainly be a basis for edit war and lead to WP:FARC. --Ragib 06:53, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Ragib, why do you feel that it will lead to edit wars? And why do you think it will be moved to WP:FARC? I have exactly the opposite opinion that if we do not summarily represent images of India, questions will get asked again and again which may lead to edit wars and WP:FARC. If any state (or region) feels misrepresented, all it needs to do is to find out a good picture and then add it to the bot. If you think that the rotation idea is dumb, do you have a better idea to address this, since whatever has been discussed till now (Toda et al...) has not lead to any solution. By the way, we already have a precedence of rotation in Portal:India and various other portals, which is working fine, so this suggestion is definitely workable. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 07:03, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I don't have to have a better idea to call a spade a spade. In a top level country page written in summary style, you can't possibly discuss all 28 states and 7 union territories. Per WP:FACR, a featured article "has images and other media where they are appropriate to the subject". Now, are you going to discuss something about all 35 subdivisions in *this* article? Then how on earth would you make an image relevant? Such images are fine in the individual state pages, but trying to force-feed images from all 35 entities into the top level country page is indeed a very dumb idea in my opinion. Also, this article is NOT a portal page. The distinction between a portal and a top level country article is very clear. Thanks. --Ragib 07:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Ragib, you are entitled to call a spade anything you want. Since you had called the spade, a "dumb spade", I wanted to know if you have any suggestions on how do you think your "dumb spade" can become a "good spade". It is fair enough that you do not have any ideas at this moment. For people who have spent KBs and hours of time on this talk page, is it so difficult to identify a set of relevant images that are representative of India's diversity. And just to make everyone understand the reason of why I am pushing for rotation: lets take a hypothetical example, where you have good images of Qutab Minar, Taj Mahal, Hampi, Mahabalipuram, Konark, Char Minar, Gol Gumbaz etc., and for the sake of the larger audience, lets assume (though it is not exactly required) that all are featured pictures. The article definitely cannot accommodate all those images. So, how would you select the correct set of images to display. The obvious answer would be to discuss it in the talk page, which is exactly what is happening but not leading to any solution and pages have been spent discussing this again and again. No rocket science is needed to understand that portals and articles are different, but there is nothing to stop a working idea being used in portals, to be used in articles as well. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 08:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Ragib, I may have been a little too quick to react to your message, but I've been thinking about it for some time. I think I'll sleep over it and I'll share my thoughts in detail in a day or two. Rotation however, seems inevitable to me. Consider this for example - the Mysore Palace is a site of immense historical and cultural significance(about which I've written in detail on one of these talk pages in the past) and whats more, it is India's number one tourist attraction. The number of visitors visiting the palace exceeded that of Taj in 2006. Now tell me, what is so special about the ajanta painting that it should find a place ahead of the Mysore palace? There surely are other deserving pics like this from other states also. A picture of the Sun temple, Konark is another historically very important picture that comes to mind. Obviously lot of people here think that it is not fair for taj and bse and ajanta to squat on the page till the end of time.

Logistically though, what perhaps needs to be pondered over is the size of our 'pool'. Right now, I'm leaning towards picking just one section to implement this with a pool of photographs picked conservatively from available ones. We could perhaps decide on a minimum resolution, size etc., for pics to even make it to the 'pool'. As for pics of some states you mentioned, especially the NE states, I really dont know how else it can be remedied without somebody actually uploading them on wiki. It is a case of systemic bias, yes, but sadly, not one we can do anything about. I mean.. if there are no pics, there are no pics. Right? Sarvagnya 09:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Some comments about choosing pictures — I think everyone wants to make sure that only high quality images deserving to be on the India page should be part of the rotation. A few sentences at Talk:India/Rotation would help narrow the pool before people even try and place low quality or non-relevant images. Here are a couple of starting points: "Images must be relevant....and be of sufficient notability" to the India article (per WP:IMAGE); images, in thumbnail size, should clearly show a distinct aspect of India that is relevant to the article; images should be of high quality, and of relatively high resolution for those who want to see more.
To clarify the last two points — I'm willing to guess that 90-99% of people scrolling through a large article do not ever click on a particular image. For that reason, the thumbnail alone should clearly make the point. I can imagine even some featured images might not show well in thumbnail size, but I don't have any examples. Conversely, since the vast majority of people don't click-through to see the high rez version of an image, I don't think it's important that images be Featured images. But it is important that they be high quality, and high rez enough that a larger size is available for those few who do click-through. ॐ Priyanath talk 19:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Why rotation doesn't make sense

All the people who are complaining about unfairness, need to ask a basic question: "Whom is this article written for?" Is it written for people, like the disputants, who already know a lot about India, who consider the page "representation space," and who are jostling to fill that space with what they consider are fair representatives? Or is it written for newcomers who don't know much about India and are looking for, in the Wikipedia India article, a short and sweet introduction to India, that will then allow them to probe deeper in the manner they want to? If the answer is the former, then, really, a new India page needs to be created, we could call it India (comprehensive), and let the disputants work out their ideal representation of both image and text, be it through through rotation or expansion. If, however, the choice is the latter, then one has to consider this. If after reading the article an average reader decides they are interested and want to probe further, the lack of representative images will be a moot point, because in the more detailed daughter articles they will find many more images; if, however, they decide not to probe further, then the images, representative or not, will not have made much of a difference, as they likely will have been forgotten. In any case, how will rotation help; on any given day, what will be presented on the India page will be a limited choice of images. Are we then expecting this average reader to come back day after day, or month after month for their complete edification? Will the Tuesday reader, who missed the Taj, then have to come back on Thursday to view it? And speaking of rotation, why stop with images, why not rotate text as well. It would certainly be more representative. Everyone's new sections could be accommodated that way. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:21, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Fowler, just so that I understand clearly. Are you trying to say that at the end of the day it does not matter what images the article contains? -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 11:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
No, I'm not saying that. Just that the summary style, in some sense is a summary style of both text and images. What you see in the article is a compact description of text and images, with a clear understanding that complexity is achieved by clicking on the links. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Of course, I am not suggesting that the same images remain in perpetuity. I think a once a year image discussion and change, in conjunction with a remainder-of-the-year drive to get India related images featured, should be ample. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Fowler, look at the Cornell homepage. If a staid and chaste Ivy League university can use a rotating tableau (updated upon reload) to represent its diversity, then why not try it here? It's a engaging feature; I often sit there and continually reload the site just to see what image it will show next, or whether they've added any new images to the rotation. Does this detract from Cornell's dignity or hinder visitors in any way? No.
Wikipedia's culture is that of openness and experimentation ("let's give it a go"), not excessive fear ("oh, but 'X', 'Y', and 'Z' might go wrong, so let's not try anything"). Experimentation is how an FA gets built: we try new things. If something goes wrong, then we sit down, figure out what it is, and fix it. If we find there's no way to fix it, we say "okay, this isn't working" and chuck it. Saravask 17:05, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
But there's the difference. Cornell is not doing it because they are claiming that this is more representative. They are doing it because it is an engaging graphics device and more importantly because they have professional photographers who take these images. (My own institution has a similar web page (at least some of the time) and a graphics department devoted to producing these images, where in one 15-minute appointment the photographer will take up to thirty or more pictures and then maybe pick one, if they think it is worthwhile.) However, an image like the Mysore Palace, will never make it to the Cornell rotation list. If we had even five featured or even near-feature quality images like Sakyamuni Siddhartha Gautama, I would be all for rotation, as I have said above, and as I said before many times beginning in Nov 2006. Furthermore, the FPC process will make the India-page contributors more illustrations-savvy. I am still mystified why among all the people who object to the current crop images there hasn't been much of a drive to get other pictures featured. I just nominated on the FP peer review the shikara image of User:Doniv79, and might also submit the Golden Langur image once I have examined it more carefully. And I plan to write to him too asking for more, since he has some images of other regions like the Rann of Kutch. If I can do this, why can't the others? We have two other Featured Pictures: a Nishi tribal (I can't decide if it is a FP, but it sure is near-FP) wearing a hat made with the beak of the Great Indian Hornbill, and the Red Panda image. If people want to use those for rotation, I don't have any problems. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
If you detest the Mysore image, you are free to argue for its demotion. Others will disagree; the point is that all of that discussion will occur on the WP:PINSPC demotion page, freeing up this talk page for more urgent matters. Saravask 20:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
But that is my point: I don't want to discuss that picture either on the Talk:India page or on some other page. How will moving the discussion elsewhere help? I will be distracted away anyway from my primary task of adding to or copyediting the text. It's best to let the FPC process take care of it, and their judgment on the Mysore Palace image was pretty definitive. I repeat what I've said above: the discussion whether rotation should be implemented on the India page, should be conducted on this page and not cloistered away somewhere else. If the decision is made to go with rotation, fine, the action would move elsewhere, but not until then. For the record, I have cast my vote against rotation, unless the decision on which images to include (or not to include) is made during the FPC process and not on WP:PINSPC. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
For those (and I certainly don't include you in that list Saravask), who thought I was unreasonably attached to the Toda image, I'd like to say, they got it completely wrong. I am attached to a representation, especially in the text, of (the culture, the economy, and the health of) rural, tribal, and "low-caste" India (which, as DaGizza has so eloquently expressed above, is more than 70% of India). I don't have any problems, for example, with the Nishi image, which I only discovered this morning, replacing the Toda image, or for that matter, some other FP or near-FP quality image replacing the Toda image. In other words, I don't want a mandatory rural/tribal/low-caste image there no matter its quality; were there were only five FPs or near FPs and none of them were about rural or tribal India, I wouldn't have any problems choosing them instead. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Fowler, this is yet another rehash of the same ire-inspiring scheme: more episodic 300-kilobyte moshes over fixed images. How long will it be before the Guelphs and Ghibellines go at each other again? We've had this problem for years; it's time to try something else. Saravask 20:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Whose ire? Wikipedia is not about people who follow Talk page discussion and apparently get irritated. It is about adding to the Pages themselves. The last time, we had a Toda hut discussion was in June; between that time and mid-September, none of the people who are now so worked up about the fixed images, saw fit to add even a sentence to the India page. The last discussion with Rueben lys about the Indian independence movement, although long drawn out, produced User:Fowler&fowler/Short History Indian Independence Movement—for which I had to read or re-read over two dozen books (in their hard copies) to make sure I was being objective—whose finished lead will go into the History of India page and through it into the India page. Most of these image discussants were not a part of that discussion. What did they produce for the India page then? Even during this past RfC, I managed to completely rewrite India#Geography, and with user:KnowledgeHegemony kept working on changing the references to the Harvard format. I too have other real-life commitments. What did my interlocutors do during that time? Since last March the page has not been locked up once. And I have not reverted anyone (other than Rueben lys), unless it was vandalism or gross POV, until I made a few Toda-Tagore reverts. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Good for you. Saravask 23:20, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Congrats. Thank you for your dedication. I think we're all volunteering our time here. Nikkul 07:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
It was Nikkul. I have removed it. Nikkul, please add your image to Saravask-Sarvagnya's rotation link or in a new section about tribal "dress," not here. This is a discussion about the pros and cons of rotation, not about its prospective constituents. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:00, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Why doesn't anything make sense in this article

This article is all that Wiki should not be.

  • This article is being owned, possessed, protected, squatted by a "core group" of editors who do not want to involve any one else into making improvements to this article. They are willing to change their loyalties in the manner of "I also supported this idea few days, months, years back, but I do not think it is a good idea now", just to be disruptive and ensure constant opposition to change
  • You need to beg, salute, plead these editors for any changes you want to make.
  • The attitude of these set of editors is demotivating and alienates many editors who may have genuinely good suggestions and comments on improving the article. It is a pity that admins take no note of constant personal taunts and put-downs that some editors here are involved in.
  • Most of what is talked is gibberish and nonsensical and a plain effort towards disruption
  • People want to spend GBs on discussion on whether a sentence needs to be added to the article - such a waste of time and energy.
  • Childish Wikitalk on you better agree to me, else I will be pushing everything to Rfc, ANI or ArbCom gives a feeling of what the heck...

Good bye guys, I have better things to do on Wikipedia article mainspaces than to get involved myself in this nonsense. The constant opposition is simply not worth the effort. Hopefully (that is a big hope), when things are better in future, may be I would be willing to contribute to this article. Till then, enjoy your fights and bickerings over few bits of data. Believe me, I will be shocked if my rotation idea sees the light of the day. Anyways, I am not bothered, fortunately Wikipedia gives me other good avenues for satisfaction. -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 05:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I know I'm an American citizen living far far away from India (Los Angeles) but I think I know what Indian Bureaucracy feels like after spending time on this page. lol Nikkul 07:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
I do have to agree. Comments such as this: "As I have said repeatedly earlier, there are lots of India-related pages that need help, and yet, you still keep insisting on working on a page that is a long-standing featured article and doesn't need help; why don't you help with the pages that need help?" [2] are not encouraging. There was also mention that we should stop editing the article since it has already gotten featured(its in the archives somewhere, i couldnt find it but its there). I do think that a couple of editors feel they own the page. I think certain admins are themselves involved in sarcastic taunts. If you'd like I can def find proof. I think the few editors who feel they own the page dont want to see change. And I think they value certain things like featured image status[3] over relevance. I def see alliances [4]. I dont see how anything will get done if we just point to the archives. Nikkul 07:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for quoting me. :) =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:55, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Tagore image does not make sense

I posted above too, but since this page has a habit of getting GB of new text per day I am posting it here too: I do not like the Tagore image. I personally find it dull and showing the picture of the person has ZERO utility. Maybe a good image that depicted a famous work by him, but who the hell cares what he looked like in context of the culture text? There are far better choices than Tagore image, including the Toda image. The RFC was never FOR the Tagore image and I personally did not vote for its inclusion when I voted against Toda image. --Blacksun 09:58, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. How about replacing Tagore with Sakyamuni Siddhartha Gautama, which is a near-feature picture quality image? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:23, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the Tagore image does not gel well with the rest of the page. It seems abrupt and out of place. --Keynes.john.maynard 14:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
The Tagore image emphatically meets WP:IMAGE#Image choice and placement: "Images must be relevant to the article they appear in and be of sufficient notability (relative to the article's topic)" and the placing of images "near relevant text". The Buddha image doesn't come close, in a section where Buddhist iconography, sculpture, or worship isn't even hinted at. And there is nothing at WP:IMAGE that recommends featured or near-featured images at all, much less over relevant and notable images placed near relevant text. ॐ Priyanath talk 23:57, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Out of place? Atleast Tagore is mentioned! The todas are not mentioned at all. Nikkul 23:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Yakshagana

The sentence on classical dance forms in the Culture section of the India page was changed sometime last November to include Yakshagana:

Reliable sources, however, consider Yakshagana to be Folk Theatre and not Classical Dance. According to the signed Encyclopaedia Britannica article, Sivaramamurti, Calambur, J. A. B. van Buitenen, Edward C. Dimock, C.M. Naim, A.K. Ramanujan, Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy, Balwant Gargi, Pramod Chandra. "South Asian arts: Techniques and Types of Classical Dance" From: Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 12 Oct. 2007, "Four distinct schools of classical Indian dance—bharata-natya, kathakali, kathak, and manipuri—exist in the 20th century ... In 1958 the Sangeet Natak Akademi (National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama) in New Delhi bestowed classical status on two other schools of dance—kuchipudi, from Andhra Pradesh, and orissi, from Orissa." Yakshagana is not in that list. The Britannica article was written in 1979 (so it is dated) in terms of what might be the classical dance forms in 2007, as designated by the Sangeet Natak Academy; however, in the section "South Asian arts: Folk Theatre" it does say:


The Sangeet Natak Academi website itself says, (see here):

Lastly, the Sangeet Natak Academi website lists eight classical dance forms: Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kathakali, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Mohiniattam, Odissi, and Sattriya, one folk dance form, Chau, and Creative Dance/Choreography as the areas it makes its major national awards in (see here). Since both Britannica and the Official SNA consider Yakshagana Folk Theatre and not Classical Dance, I am removing it from the list of classical dances in the Culture section. If and when there is a section or paragraph devoted to the "Folk and Tribal Culture of India," we can reconsider its inclusion. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Yakshagana is a classical folk art form and it includes dance among other things such as music, spoken word etc. Thanks, - KNM Talk 16:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I understand that. But the reliable sources, consider it Tradition and Folk Theatre and not Classical Dance. Tradition and folk theatre includes dance and music, and many others like Jathra, Prahalad Natak, Therukoothu are just as old. (See yakshagana.com and click on "introduction." and read quote: "Being a theatre form, unlike a dance form, it is more plural(istic) and dynamic.") Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Easy solution would be to add text about tradition and folk theater. It is definitely culture worthy. --Blacksun 23:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

New Additions

Reading the discussion above, there seems to be a general consensus for some new sections or sub-sections (whether formal or not). The topics that I am aware of are:

  • Religion in India (originally suggested by Priyanath, however, it seems to be losing momentum)
  • Science and Technology in India suggested by Rueben lys
  • Rural Urban Divide (or something to that effect, suggested by DaGizza)
  • Folk and Tribal Culture (suggested by Priyanath, seconded by DaGizza and Fowler&fowler)
  • Sports in India (suggested by KnowledgeHegemony(?))
  • Others?

Please list any others you are interested in. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I never suggested a religion section - in fact I think it's unnecessary. What I did suggest was that Religion needs to be more prominently mentioned in the culture section. Religion has an effect on Culture that warrants a subsection (at least as much as a Folk and Tribal Culture subsection, based on relevance). Here is what I said: "There actually does need to be some discussion of the influence of all religions in India on Culture, not just in passing as it's done now. And it should be more than in increase of 5% because of the relevance of religion on Indian Culture. I've had the sense this issue is being avoided due to past disputes along these lines, but it does need to be addressed in this article, IMO." ॐ Priyanath talk 19:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry I have to do the dirty job, but user:Otolemur crassicaudatus has just created a number of subsections including religion (in demographics) that are still in the process of being finalized on this talk page. I left a message on his talk page, but since he didn't respond and kept editing the India page, I ultimately had to revert. His edits for the most part have no edit summaries. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:57, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
It would be better to add subsections 'Income, human development and social class' and 'Science, technology, and transportation' within section 'Economy' and subsection 'Language', 'Religion' and 'Education and health' within section 'Demographics'. Otolemur crassicaudatus 19:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
I do understand that's is your point of view, but it might not be DaGizza's or Blacksun's or Rueben lys's. We are trying to arrive at a common consensus on what to add. I would urge you to revert until other peoples' points of view have been accommodated. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:08, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Here is what I propose:

  • Culture section
  1. Religion in India
  2. Folk culture in India
  • Science and Technology
  • Transport
  • Sports

Nikkul 19:18, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Religion should not be included within 'Culture' section, because religion is a topic of 'Demographics'. Science and Technology, Transport is a topic within 'Economy'. Sports can be included within 'Culture' section. Otolemur crassicaudatus 19:24, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Nikkul, that there should be a 'Religion' subsection of Culture, along with a 'Folk and Tribal' subsection. See my comments just above. ॐ Priyanath talk 19:28, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
It is standard practice to mention religion in demographics. This does not mean that cultural aspect of religion like festivals etc. cannot be mentioned in culture. --Blacksun 22:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Boldeness Boldness desired

I would encourage all editors, including the likes of Otlemur, to be be bold and contribute to the main article as they seem themselves capable and fit. If and when such edits are inherently undesirable, they will nominate themselve for dispute and deletions. Till then, such edits, or the lack of them, is what is or will prevent the article from being improved.Rueben lys 21:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Look, Rueben, to use your own writing above as an example, when an editor is looking at a sentence like your first sentence, I agree it is easy to fix it. Replace "seem" by "deem" or "consider" and change a few other things. If the writing is like your second sentence, one can't fix it, but one could leave a tag requesting explanation of "inherently undesirable." However, when the writing is like your third sentence, which is both poorly written and difficult to interpret, what is a neutral editor to do? Remember that deletions too are a form of boldness. Speaking more generally, why can poorly written and poorly argued sentences be allowed to be inserted with unchecked abandon in the name of boldness, but not be allowed to be deleted with equal abandon—by the editors who look on in horror—also in the name of boldness? Why should the onlookers then have to polish the rungs of a ladder that clearly will not support the weight? Why should the onlooking editors then have to run a New Age writing school, give everyone "an A for effort and allow the endless additions to stand?" (as Saravask had once once so aptly put it).
Why can't the bold editors, for their part, take a writing class or work through a writing book and learn to express themselves clearly first? Why can't the bold editors take a Indian history or economics course, read some scholarly books, and learn what historical or economic methodology is about, rather than continuing to copy snippets of text from Google Books and paraphrasing them for their half digested arguments? Well, the inability to truly answer these questions (not parrot the Wikipedia dogma that anyone can edit) is what leads to edit wars. That's what happened yesterday. Blacksun saw the article degenerate from a tight decently written article to a junior high-school blog on MySpace in a few surreal hours. Clearly, he had to do something. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Because, Fowler, reading a scholarly book was never a prerequisite for editing a wikipedia article, verfiabillity was. As for the quality, grammar, and c/e mistakes, I think what you've just said is probably the biggest example anybody could give about what is wrong with this article and what's stopping this article from improving. I've said before, if an editor feels strongly about something as simple as this, improve it, but it is the flimsiest ground for deletion and I think also disrespectful of the editor who had made it/Rueben lys 10:50, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
I propose we create a Talk:India/Sandbox for those wanting to make changes to the article. Their content might be beneficial, but if there are plenty of spelling and grammatical errors, we can weed those out before the additions go onto the actual page. GizzaDiscuss © 10:41, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
That, actually, is a very good idea. Why didn't anyone think of that before? I mean not a sandbox for whole article, but just a space where people can leave their potential additions and indicate where they want them to go. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:50, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
PS Your suggestion is quite similar to the consensus that was reached in the RfC I conducted in February this year, but it has the benefit that it moves the text-editing problem to another page, thereby freeing the Talk:India for more important discussions. Although this is formally similar to the Saravask-Sarvagnya idea of a separate page for image discussions (which I oppose), it is really different. For images, we already have a sifting process, the FPC review; however, for the frequent inclusion of few sentences or even paragraphs, we don't, it has to be done ourselves, until a possible yearly peer-review. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:04, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
To Rueben, no matter how good one's intentions are, if the additions are almost incomprehensible, there is very little value in adding them. And I don't mean insult you or anyone else with that remark. It is simply the truth. If 99 out 100 people read a particular sentence and don't properly undetstand it, what is its use? It might as well not be there until it can be expressed clearly.
If you disagree with me, fair enough. However, I encourage you to at least make use of the Show preview button before you clik Save page in edit mode. That way you can at least fix the obvious errors in your changes. GizzaDiscuss © 11:07, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
To: DaGizza, One thing we can do is to go ahead and create the sandbox and also start a group of users (a collective of sorts) who volunteer to participate in it. Membership would be voluntary. Rueben or Sarvagnya would not have to join the group. But at least for the sandbox users, there will be discussion and help and improvement available, because the text will be presented in manageable bits and the spirit will be one of cooperation. And, who knows, it might have a beneficial effect when others see the quality of the sandbox-initiated edits. In a sense we are supplementing the WP dogma about "being bold" (which I agree has its place and time) with WP:COOPERATE. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:43, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I think having a voluntary membership will start to create a more egalitarian atmosphere. Nobody can accuse anyone else of WP:OWNership anymore. GizzaDiscuss © 12:19, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Simply Ridiculous

Rueben states: "(Undid revision by User:Blacksun. Per wiki, WP:VERIFY, and WP:OWN, WP:BOLD (per talk page banner) these were justified and desirable edits)"

Let us take few examples of Rueben's justified and desirable edits:
1) Science and technology in India forms a major commitemnet for both the Govt and Private sector in India.
Even if we ignore the obvious typo, what the hell is that sentence supposed to mean? How is that even remotely a quality sentence?

It is supposed to mean that both the government and private sector have made the improvement of sceince and technology infrastructure as a major goal. I think it is pretty self-evident!
Rueben lys 11:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
In that case, the word forms should be changed to is or has become. The setence you wrote above explains it better than the current sentence. GizzaDiscuss © 11:18, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

2) India posseses one of the world's largest scientific and technological infrastructure and manpower, which in [[2006] was worth Rs 30 billion, up from the Rs 10 million in [[1947].
I repeat, what the hell?? Again even if we ignore the typos and shoddy sentence structure, the claim is simply false.

The claim is made by the High commission of India in London, which claims it is the third largest in the world, and gives those exact figures. So you're alleging that the India government is lying, or dont know anything about this but still making a fuss.
Rueben lys 11:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I actually do claim that the High commissioner is not a credible source then. If we did have one of the largest scientific infrastructure and manpower, we would not be so far behind in the matter where it counts: patents, peer reviewed journal publications, and number of PHDs. Just because the High Commission of India in London says something does not make it true. I am sure one can come up with irrelevant statistic but the fact is that we are fairly behind in current science if you consider the most widely used metrics: Publication and citations of those publications. Ignoring this is nothing short of dubious. If you do not believe me just open the recent Nature journal article where they are talking about state of Russian science. In it they have a nice list of countries and metrics associated with their status in Science. We were not doing that great. --Blacksun 01:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I think the shoddy sentence structure refers to argest scientific and technological infrastructure and manpower. I don't believe you can have a "large infrastructure" and "large manpower" but rather a "lot of manpower" and "highly developed infrastructure." Also why the comparisons from 1947 (Just curious, we could use 1997 data for example) GizzaDiscuss © 11:18, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
The sentence says "one of the largest", which probaby could be changed to "amongst the largest". Or incorporate your text instead.Incidentally, the comparisn is to 1947 figures because that was the only figure found on the HCI website to be compared to.Rueben lys 11:27, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

3) India also has major ongoing collaborations with a number of countries, including those on space science with Europe, and on Biotechnology and allied fields with Asian countries, inclusing South Korea.

Again, sourced from the [dst.gov.in Dept of Science and Technology] of the government of India.Rueben lys 11:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

4) Multitude of two line sections which would never pass a FA review.

So ya I disagree with the so-called justified and desirable edits. It has been a while since I encountered such utter disregard for the article to push one's agenda.--Blacksun 00:53, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, a number of the references provided Otelmur ae from [fas.org], which can now also be used to expand the S&T aticle as well. Do you see how this is an improvement?Rueben lys 11:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

While nobody is going to claim that the passage was FA quality or even anywhere near FA-quality, I certainly see 'potential' in it. The additions certainly dont qualify as nonsense and I would certainly give passages like that atleast a few days to a couple of weeks before I nuke them. This is the kind of 'revert on sight' that has put off people from contributing to this article for over a year now. This article has remained immutable for far too long and its time we got a little WP:bold and see how it goes. There is always a stable version we can rollback to if we lose our way. Sarvagnya 01:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
This has been discussed before - I am sure Fowler can dig it up. Some of the most respected editors and biggest names on Wikipedia were of the opinion that massive changes like this to a stable FA article like India should be talked on the discussion page first. In fact, I think I was one of the few who was not too happy with it. The changes made are nothing short of drastic and POOR QUALITY (saying its not near-FA quality is being generous). It is not reverse on sight - I never reverse things unless it is completely out of place. --Blacksun 01:29, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Having a science and technology section was proposed on this very page a few days ago and didnt meet with any extraordinary opposition. So there certainly is reason to think that people are not opposed to the idea, atleast 'in principle'. And there are always going to be some 'to set the ball rolling' edits which will be less than perfect. That is no reason to revert them or we'll never set the ball rolling. If everyone here could just take a deep breath and hold tight for a couple of weeks to a month, there will be 'material' changes in the article for the better. A short-term state of flux and temporary bloat in the article is inevitable if we have to expand/improve the article. Its time we came up with a 'new and improved' Wikipedia India article 2.0 And with all due respect to the likes of Nichalp, while there are good edits and bad edits, but there are no "biggest names" in wikipedia, atleast not in this context. Also, the "no edits without discussion" line has been refuted several times already. Short of changing wikipedia's very fundamentals, such arbitrary moratoria on adding info to the article dont fly. Sarvagnya 01:48, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
There is no reason that a reader should suffer through bad quality for "a week or month" when the same process can be done without that happening. There is a very good reason why we have tools like sandbox. Also, when you state "While nobody is going to claim that the passage was FA quality or even anywhere near FA-quality" - I beg to differ - Rueben finds them desirable and justified as per his edit summary. Why should I have any faith in either of you? - If you were looking for a unified way towards working on expanding the article, you just lost one supporter. And no, I did not mean Nichalp when I said "biggest names" in wikipedia. --Blacksun 01:55, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
And there is no reason why an article shouldnt be used as a sandbox once in a while(like once in two years or something). There is a very good reason we have {{underconstruction |section}} tags meant for article space on wiki. Feel free to use them. A sandbox is very useful when creating articles from scratch. I use it all the time. But in some cases, where there are more people standing by and willing(hopefully) to contribute, there is no reason to invoke wiki-red tape and not 'build' it where constructive criticism will be forthcoming real time. Also, given the history of ownership on this article, no editor is going to spend weeks in his sandbox, do his very best, bring it over here for display only for his contributions to be summarily dismissed. Edits with potential are meant to be fixed, not reverted; atleast not without giving them a fair chance. Sarvagnya 02:12, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
It is very hard to give constructive criticism when edits have been made to almost every section of a stable FA article. It becomes even that much harder when the edits have typos and unverifiable claims. On top of all that when you defend such edits as desirable and justfied you end up with even less room for cooperation.--Blacksun 02:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Blacksun. The changes being made are ridiculous, unsourced, and shabby. I only reverted only once because it seemed that Otolemur wouldn't take no for an answer. I am glad Blacksun reverted his edits in toto. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:41, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Otelmur shouldn't have to take no for an answer. His edits had a good reference, the main article had afew reference, quite simple to read through and add to this one. I am terribly concerned now in light of Fowler's earier comment above about having to read a book or have a scholarly degree in something before being allowed to write. Wikipedia is a wiki, it is not a conference of Neurosurgeons nor the journal Nature that only Albert Einstein and his student should be allowed to "publish".Rueben lys 11:14, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


Wow India page is now a SANDBOX. Go ahead, clutter it and then say it has potential. Sorry, but 'QUALITY' doesn't matter here, sorry no scope for that. If you add quality you will be rubbished as a wannabe Einstein. Also if you still have a problem with quality do not remove it but please fix it (ie. Yah, yeah wash others'dirty linen please). Also add an image here and an image there (especially if its one from your city or state).

What's left to say folks. This page is soon going into the dumps. The only thing that makes sense to me is the India/Sandbox solution.

As for the subsectioning:
Personally, I am not happy with these developments:( If you want to include subsections everywhere or else remove subsections. But if that is what people want then History, Politics, Culture, Government, Geography should also have subsections.KnowledgeHegemony 13:52, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

KH, if you dont want to wash somebody else's dirty linen, you really dont have to. But that also does not mean that others have to be dictated on what or how to edit because of that fear. I am really surprised at some of the opinions that are being expressed in this page, which has shown blatantly that some of the editors demand that either they be consulted because they consider themselves experts, or indicate that they have somehow earned the right to dictate the course and content somebody else's contributions to this page. I must say I find Fowler's (and Dagizza's) opinion on the sandbox idea in this current page more sensible, compared to some of the other opinions (including some of yours as well as some others') that seem to be dangerously possessive, red-taping and unwiki. Please take a calm look a the situation and appreciate that the article needs to move on beyond what it was in 2004 or 2006, and the most genuine method would've been individual (and yes,uregulated) contributions, followed by a general cleanup and improvement of that same content to better quality. In fact, I think that is how this page started in the first place and came to reach the FA status.Rueben lys 16:50, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm also concerned about the possessiveness being shown to this article. Yes, the recent addition has typos and poor writing, but is definitely worth considering, rather than dismissing out of hand. Articles do improve when new editors are welcomed rather than attacked. Even though this is a FA, it's a very poor one, and needs a fresh look. So what if it gets messy, that's Wikipedia. And the article is improving with the recent attention it's been receiving. ॐ Priyanath talk 17:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
A bloated articles is not necessarily improved. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:58, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree. One with more references, and information that is less vague and listy are the improvements I've seen so far. ॐ Priyanath talk 19:43, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


india is more commonly known as Hindustan than Bharat...i dont think i've ever heard anyone call it bharat in my life...maybe in books, but not verbally. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.179.160.44 (talk) 17:16, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Why subsections should or shouldn't be created

I looked at a bunch of country pages and it seems at least in my sample they split two to one between those that have subsections and those that don't. Here they are with some parenthetical remarks of mine.

With subsections
Without subsections

I am personally against subsections altogether. The reason for this is that when topics are covered in paragraphs only, but not in subsections, the writer has to pay attention to coordination between paragraphs, has to develop broad themes for comparison (rather than saying in sub-section 8 above). Consequently the prose is tighter (more coherent). However, I also realize that sometimes there is a need for sub-sections. If a section too long then an average reader usually prefers some guidance in the form of subsections, and I'd like to hear what others think. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:48, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Subsections make a particular section more easily understandable. For example in the section 'Economy', creating subsections titled 'Income, human development, and social class' and 'Science, technology, and transportation' would split a particular topic in more specialized parts; through the first subsection it would be easy to find the human development of that particular economy and in the next subsection it would be easy to find the factors behind the economy namely technology and transport. However, 'Science and technology' can be created as a separate section as in the articles Belgium (FA), Argentina etc. because science and technology plays a key role in determining the country's society, economy, foreign relations and even politics. 'Tourism' also can be created as a separate section. But the subsections in this article should be concise and to-the-point as detailed discussion will be in the main articles. And sub-sub-sections should not be created as this makes the topic unnecessarily complicated and lengthy. Otolemur crassicaudatus 10:38, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a travel guide. As such, sections on tourism on a country page are almost always frowned upon. Furthermore, having too many subsections can be noisy too. They should be used only when their is a real need to do so. --Blacksun 10:51, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Making a separate tourism section does not convert wikipedia into a traveller's manual. However I agree with your point of view that separate tourism section should not be created on a country page. This will make the article unnecessarily lenghty. As tourism is a part of a country's economy, so very concisely and to-the-point one or two lines about the tourism industry can be added in the Economy section. But subsections 'Income, human development, and social class' and 'Science, technology, and transportation' in the 'Economy' and 'Language', 'Religion', 'Education and health' in 'Demographics' section are needed. These subsections split the relevant sections into more specialised parts and make the topics more easily understandable. Otolemur crassicaudatus 11:48, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, lets see if we can agree on a few things. Ottolemur, what Blacksun is saying is that a page like this, which on my screen, shows four sub-sub-sections on one page, is a bit of an overkill. Don't you agree? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fowler&fowler (talk • contribs) 12:12, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your point of view. The article you linked has sub-sub-sections. As I have mentioned above, sub-sub-sections should not be created. But 'Income, human development, and social class' and 'Science, technology, and transportation' are not sub-sub-section, these are necessary subsections. Otolemur crassicaudatus 12:24, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

OK. (That, BTW, was just an example. It doesn't really matter that they are subsubsections, the point is that had they been subsections, visible four to a page, they would have created a lot of clutter.) Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that we should never have subsections, just that there should be a minimal length for them and if they fail to be that length, they should really be absorbed in the main text. Yesterday, I created an experimental edit which I immediately reverted for this purpose. Please look at this section. Do you agree that anything shorter than this Indian Independent Movement section (which would then allow more than two subsection headers to be displayed on the page) would really be too short for its own independent sub-section? That is obviously my opinion, but I think we can arrive at some length principle like that. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:44, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The subsections 'Income, human development, and social class' and 'Science, technology, and transportation' have something separate and more specialized than a general discussion on economy. 'Income, human development, and social class' has related discussion on economy. In economy section country's GDP, major industries, economic policy etc. can be added. For example, the subsection 'Science, technology, and transportation' deals with the factors behind the economy. In a country page, there should be discussion on the country's scientific and technological progress. And transportation is a key factor behind country's economy. So these big factors should be added with a separate subsection. The length of a subsection is a factor, but emphasis should be given on the weight of the subsection, the necessity of the subsection. Subsections should not be created unnecessarily, they should be created only where they are necessary. Otolemur crassicaudatus 13:17, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions, but these are not recommended by Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries. Instead of including all such information here, could you help the relevant articles instead? Thanks! =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:55, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
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